Adobe Reader 9 is released – to install, or not to install

Adobe Reader 9 is released but wait a minute before you go ahead and install it.

Although you can install Adobe Acrobat 9.x or Adobe Reader 9.x on a computer that contains an installation of previous Acrobat versions, it is not recommended.

Adobe Technical Support does not recommend or support having multiple versions of Acrobat or Adobe Reader installed on the same machine (for example Acrobat 8, with Adobe Reader 9 or Acrobat 7 with Adobe Reader 8)

This KB document on coexisting installations and version interoperability  has a great chart that is useful if you need to have multiple versions of Adobe Reader/Acrobat products installed.

News in Adobe Reader 9 and possible benefits of installing:

• Enhanced general performance and, in particular, reduced launch times with Adobe Reader 9.
• PDF Portfolios.
• Native Adobe Flash support.
• Acrobat.com (beta).
• Security enhancements.
• New PDF Standards Pane, improved CAD and geospatial functionality and accessibility enhancements.

Download Adobe Reader 9 (33.5MB) or distribute Adobe Reader 9 in your enterprise or bundle it with a CD or computer. Adobe Reader System Requirements.

I have Adobe Acrobat 8 installed on my Vista machine and I have no compelling reasons to upgrade it but I will give it a try to also install Adobe Reader 9. Let’s see what kind of problems that can create.

During the installation My Adobe Reader 8 was uninstalled and then I got this Error 1311. Source file not found: C:\Users\JTB\AppData\Local\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Setup Files\READER9\Data1.cab. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.

Sure enough Data1.cab did not exist. I tried to download again and as I had the folder in question opened I noticed that Data1.cab and some other files where added.

I get a dialog box asking me to close Adobe Download Manager and when I do that I noticed that the only file left in the READER9 folder is Setup.exe and therefore the installation will fail again. Stupid!

One irritating thing is that if I close Internet Explorer with the “Adobe Download Manager powered by getPlus®” box the Adobe Download Manager also is closed.

So I try one more time and this time I will try to Ignore to close the Download Manager as well as Internet Explorer. Ignoring seems to help, the setup continues and returns to the Download Manager that has reached 92% but seems to got stuck. It seems like most of the installation is ready. The desktop shortcut for Adobe Reader 9 is there. After waiting some more minutes I’m confident that it has hanged. I close the Download Manager and tries to start Reader. It works. I’m also able to start Adobe Acrobat 8 with no problems.

Wondering what should happen after the 92%. What am I missing. What problems will I have. Time will tell.

I tried to continue by clicking on the desktop shortcut for the Download Manager and this time it did run to the end. Will I be safe now?

First thing I tried was File>Create Adobe PDF Using Acrobat.com…

Adobe Reader started Internet Explorer twice. One that is empty.

And one with two tabs started like this.

Enough for today's exercise.

Share your experience if you dare to try install version 9.

Via Adobe Reader Weblog.