Adobe Reader will not properly install on my computer. After installing the program the icons for several programs (such as Word, Paint, Excel, etc) all change to the Adobe Reader icon and these programs will no longer open, instead producing an error message such as “Adobe Reader could not open mspaint.exe because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged”. The computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium.

Jenny also included several screen shots with her question, showing the normal Windows desktop and the Windows desktop after installing Adobe Reader. This showed that the shortcut icons for several programs changed to the Adobe Reader document icon, which potentially indicates a file association problem. The error message which you provided shows that Adobe Reader is attempting to open those programs within Adobe Reader, and is treating them like a PDF document (or other file type) which Adobe Reader is capable of opening and displaying. Obviously, we do not want this to happen as programs such as Word, Paint and Excel are applications in their own right, and can open themselves and are not able to be viewed within Adobe Reader as they are not Adobe Reader documents! I mentioned before the signs are pointing to this problem being a file association problem – this means that Adobe Reader has hijacked the .EXE file association and is attempting to open .EXE files. This is an odd occurrence, since .EXE files are always known as program files which execute themselves and do not require a third-party application to view and display the files. Therefore, it seems that something has gone wrong with the installation of Adobe Reader causing this to occur, as this should definitely not be happening by default.

The most likely cause of this problem is that some time in the past .EXE files had accidentally been set to open using Adobe Reader. So, we will need to reverse this change. Changing the file association for normal (non-EXE) file types is generally quite simple, as you can right-click on the relevant file and select “Open With” > “Choose Default Program” then select the new program you would like to use to open that type of file. However, resetting the file association for EXE files is more difficult, as there was no way built into the Windows interface to accomplish this task. The rationale behind this was probably because users should never have been able to change the EXE file association in the first place, so there was no need to have the ability to revert the association back to its original setting. In order to revert the setting, we will need to modify the Windows registry to tell Windows that EXE files should not be opened using Adobe Reader.

We could encounter difficulties here, because if Adobe Reader has been set to open all EXE files then we will be unable to open the Windows Registry Editor to make the necessary modifications. As you can see, we could have a Catch-22 situation. In order to reset Windows to open EXE files you need to use the Windows Registry Editor to modify the registry, but to open the Windows Registry Editor (which is an EXE program) you first need to reset Windows to open EXE files. However, you will be glad to know that the fact you may not be able to open the Registry Editor is actually superfluous, as there is a better and more robust way to submit changes to the registry in this situation.

In order to resolve this problem, we need to make quite a few registry changes involving some fairly complex modifications to the registry. Rather than using the Registry Editor to manually make these changes, which is a somewhat haphazard and error-prone process, I found a website which has some pre-made REG files which will make the changes automatically. Visit blog.jtbworld.com/2007/03/have-you-lost-your-exe-file-extension.html which deals with the exact problem you are experiencing, specifically relating to when Adobe Reader steals the file association for .EXE files in Windows Vista. Under the “Solution” heading you will see four .REG files. These files contain the necessary registry modifications to (hopefully) fix the problem. In order to import these files into your Windows registry you simply need to double-click on the relevant .REG file, eliminating the need to open the Registry Editor and also avoiding the need to manually make the changes in the registry. We want to download each of the .REG files to the Windows desktop, so right-click on each link and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” (depending on which web browser you are using). Once all four files have been downloaded, close any open programs on your computer and show the Windows desktop. You will notice the files are numbered “Windows Vista exe fix.reg” to “Windows Vista exe fix4.reg”. Each file increases in the thoroughness of its fix, but we don’t want to implement a very thorough fix (which changes many settings) if a less-thorough fix will resolve the problem, as this will mean the minimum number of settings are changed to achieve the desired outcome. As such, we will start with running the “Windows Vista exe fix.reg” file which imposes the fewest changes on the system. Double-click on this file located on your desktop. A window will appear saying “The publisher could not be verified”. Click “Run”. Another window will now appear from Windows User Access Control, asking your permission to continue. Click “Continue”. Finally, a last window will appear confirming you wish to add the information contained in the .REG file into the Windows Registry. Click “Yes”. The information will now be imported in the registry. Restart your computer and check whether the problem has been fixed.

Should the problem continue, proceed to the next registry file and follow the same procedure (double-click the file to import into the registry, and then restart the computer to check whether the problem has been resolved). If you execute the final registry file and the problem continues, then please contact me again for further advice.