If you’re like me and have finally made the move to a 64bit version of Windows, be it Vista or Windows 7, you may have come across an annoying glitch related to PDF previews within Outlook 2007. Instead of displaying the PDF correctly you receive an error similar to “This file cannot be previewed because of an error with the following previewer: PDF Preview Handler for Vista - To open this file in its own program, double-click it.”
Adobe Acrobat and Reader both come with Adobe PDF preview handlers for Outlook but the installer has a mistake which means the preview handler does not work on 64-bit systems. It turns out the problem can be fixed via a simple registry change.
All that needs to be done to correctly preview PDF docs in Outlook 2007 64bit is to first download the latest Adobe Reader, then add the following key to your registry;
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeClassesCLSID{DC6EFB56-9CFA-464D-8880-44885D7DC193}]
"AppID"="{534A1E02-D58F-44f0-B58B-36CBED287C7C}"
The fix should only be applied to 64-bit versions of Windows that have Adobe Reader installed. Don’t apply the fix to 32-bit versions of Windows. To install make it easier to configure, download the adobe_pdf_x64_fix, unzip then double-click the adobe_pdf_x64_fix.reg file and follow the prompts.
thanks to http://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/index.html for this workaround..
November 1st, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Thank-you so much, this is the first time I found a fix that worked for this.
Cheers,
Steve Kincade
November 8th, 2009 at 12:55 am
Good stuff – link’s broken though.
November 8th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Oops – thanks for catching that Davie. Should be fixed now.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Thank you so much Mark!
November 29th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Brilliant, thanks mate
November 29th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Mark, thanks mate! I’ve been searching high and low for this fix and it works!
December 9th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I have window 32 bit and I have the same problem, is there a fix for it?
December 15th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
There’s a new version of the fix which automates things and works on more machines. Should be much easier for less technical users now:
http://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/index.html
December 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Thank you for the fix… worked like a charm
January 12th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Vielen Dank!
Es funktioniert (wie die wenigsten Hinweise im Netz)
- Win7 pro, 64 bit
- Outlook 2007
- Adobe Acrobat 9.2
January 18th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Thanks for the fix..Worked Perfect
January 25th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Worked great!
Win7 Pro, 64 BIt, Outlook 2007, Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.3
Thank you.
January 30th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Works great , good work
January 30th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
If you go to my page there’s a newer/better version of the fix now.
February 16th, 2010 at 7:49 am
Fantastic! Thanks for posting this. Worked like a charm!
April 21st, 2010 at 10:32 am
Many thanks – that fixed it in seconds !!! Cheers !