How to fix PDF previews in Outlook 2007 64 bit

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..

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16 Comments

  1. Steve Kincade
    November 1, 2009

    Thank-you so much, this is the first time I found a fix that worked for this.

    Cheers,

    Steve Kincade

  2. Davie Robertson
    November 8, 2009

    Good stuff – link’s broken though.

    • November 8, 2009

      Oops – thanks for catching that Davie. Should be fixed now.

  3. Matt
    November 24, 2009

    Thank you so much Mark!

  4. Mike
    November 29, 2009

    Brilliant, thanks mate

  5. Trav
    November 29, 2009

    Mark, thanks mate! I’ve been searching high and low for this fix and it works!

  6. Mohamed
    December 9, 2009

    I have window 32 bit and I have the same problem, is there a fix for it?

  7. Masari
    December 16, 2009

    Thank you for the fix… worked like a charm

  8. fatboy
    January 12, 2010

    Vielen Dank!

    Es funktioniert (wie die wenigsten Hinweise im Netz)

    – Win7 pro, 64 bit
    – Outlook 2007
    – Adobe Acrobat 9.2

  9. Charles
    January 18, 2010

    Thanks for the fix..Worked Perfect

  10. Steven Markegene
    January 25, 2010

    Worked great!

    Win7 Pro, 64 BIt, Outlook 2007, Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.3

    Thank you.

  11. Bruno
    January 30, 2010

    Works great , good work

  12. January 30, 2010

    If you go to my page there’s a newer/better version of the fix now.

  13. February 16, 2010

    Fantastic! Thanks for posting this. Worked like a charm!

  14. April 21, 2010

    Many thanks – that fixed it in seconds !!! Cheers !

Comments are closed.