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Yes, I know this is a health blog, but most of you know one of my other passions are computer technology which is why I started the blog in the first place. If you dread opening PDF files as much as I do because of Acrobat Reader's painfully sluggish startup time, there is now a solutoin. Just found out about a nifty free utility tweaks Acrobat to load in a flash.
How does it work? Start up your version of Acrobat reader-see all of those plugins that are loading while you sit back and wait for the program to start? The majority of those plugins are completely useless for most of you. The Adobe Reader SpeedUp Utility simply disables the loading of most plugins, without altering Acrobat in any other way.
To install the program, visit the download page in the link below and click the link for Adobe Reader SpeedUp. This starts the download of a zip file-unzip the contents of the file into its own folder. Then, use the Windows Run command to execute the file "Reader SpeedUp.exe" in your new folder.
A "welcome" dialog gives you two options: SpeedUp and Restore Original Configuration. Select SpeedUp to install. The Restore Original Configuration option allows you roll back the changes to Acrobat's default settings if for some reason you find a need to load all of the Adobe configured plugins.
The next screen shows a list of all of the plugins the Acrobat Reader loads on startup. If you're certain you need specific plugins to view some of your documents, you can manually select those you want to enable.
The easier approach is to choose a speed up mode: Fast, Turbo or Bare. I chose Fast, which is the recommended mode. That's all there is to it. Every time you run Acrobat from now on, no more agonizing wait. This utility can decrease by up to ten seconds the amount of time it takes to start up Adobe Reader.
Adobe Reader SpeedUp works with all versions of Acrobat starting with version 3. If you run the program and then upgrade to a newer version of Acrobat, you can run Adobe Reader SpeedUp again to disable the startup plugins in the new version. This program only works for Windows, not for Apple's operating system.
Adobe Speed Up Utility