How to use liposuction to repair Adobe Reader 6

OUR READERS are wonderful. Well, most of you who don't hate-mail me are. Unlike PR departments from billon-dollar corporations who flood our inboxes with spin and then refuse us a test CPU so we can test other products (you know who you are), our readers digest our rants, occasionally sending "thank you" notes, and in other instances more info that helps us write follow-up stories.

That is the case this time. I reported some time ago on the slooooooow nature of Adobe's latest version of the acrobat (.pdf) reader, recently renamed "Adobe Reader" by their marketing spinmeisters. See "Adobe's quiet release of Reader software causes people to scream".

And just a few days an e-mail from a reader, Kelly Cook, sneaked into my inbox, claiming to have found a way to trim the fat off Adobe Reader 6, and improving its load time to more reasonable levels. Apparently the reader spotted this info on a Mac-related blog and decided to try it on the Windows version. I have tried it myself and guess what, it worked.

On my tests, I decided to use the "lowest of the low-end" system: my Thinkpad 380ed with a Pentium I-MMX class CPU. Before the liposuction, Adobe Reader 6 took 41 seconds to load (without any PDF file), after the fat-removal procedure, it took 20 seconds. On high-end systems, however, the results are more dramatic: Kelly claims Adobe Reader 6 took over 20 seconds to load on a 1.8 Ghz. Pentium 4 system, and just under two seconds after the procedure.

So here are the dirty details

Install Adobe Reader 6 :)
From the Start->Run windows menu, Open the "x:Program FilesAdobeAcrobat 6.0Reader" folder, where x is the right drive letter.
Find the plug_ins folder and rename it plug_ins_disabled
Create a new folder named plug_ins
Copy the following files from "plug_ins_disabled" to "plug_ins": EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api

Of course this will limit the functionality to viewing non-encrypted pdf files, but that's exactly what I want Acrobat ^B^B^B^B^B Adobe Reader for, 99.9% of the time. You might want to experiment leaving some of the fat in, I mean, .API files, like reflow.api and search5.api (if it's there), and see how it affects functionality and load times.

With the files listed, you get half the load time on low-end systems, and a 2-sec load time on high-end ones. Still, you might want to prefer using Acrobat Reader 4.05 on old systems, since it loads in just seven seconds instead of 20.

Your mileage might vary. Liposuction is a dangerous clinical procedure. Consult your doctor. All lawsuits and claims should go not to me, but to our editor and our reader Kelly. ;). µ