Permanently Disable Navigation, Tools, Comments

[Nicholas5E9A]

I use a pretty popular CAD program to create drawings, I used to use Reader to open, view and print my drawings. Reader has been so completely busted over the last year or so that I'm using an old CD install of Acrobat X Standard just so I don't have to deal with all this Reader nonsense. Acrobat X is an old program and it gives me issues as well. I'd like to get back to using Reader, as a Reader and nothing me. I'm the only one who opens/views these drawings so all the unnecesary clicks and extremely disruptive.

I would like to have the Bookmark/Thumbnails/Navigation sidebar disabled. I have "Restore last view settings when reopening documents" checked, but EVERY time I open a drawing, new or old, the Navigation sidebar is ALWAYS opened by default. There is literally zero information in the side panel. These are 1 page documents with no bookmarks, with no thumbnails, yet it's always open.

Next up is the Tools sidebar. Again, nothing here has any value to me, I have"Remember current state of Tool Pane" checked, but like the navigation sidebar, it's ALWAYS open. I never have and never will use any of these 'tools', I'd love it if this sidebar was just deleted from the program.

Finally, the reason I had to stop using Reader entirely... Comments. All my documents are single page, I'm using Reader as a Reader to View my documents and Print my drawings. I'm the only one who opens them using this program so removing Comments as a feature entirely would be ideal. Same with my other 2 issues, EVERY drawing I open, opens the Comments section. You should see what happens to my documents when I open them and all these different panels open. It's like I'm looking at an icon on my windows taskbar. I have "Show comments pane when a PDF with comments is opened" unchecked. Also, my documents don't have any comments, so... why is this even opening?

To recap:

Navigation sidebar, want it always closed, if I ever need it, I can opening it myself.

Tools sidebar, want it closed, never need it to show up.

Comments, would love it if I never saw this monstrosity ever again.

[radzmar]

You're getting Reader for free. In return Adobe's using it in a kind of self-advertising for additional functions you possibly might get interested in. If you don't like it, you can use the Customization Wizard to change the installer for Reader or you can use 3rd party PDF-viewer such as MUPDF.