Windows 10 explorer preview prevents PDF delete. Is this being fixed?  

I tried to replicate in a couple of machines.

On the one with Adobe Reader 11.0.17, I can replicate get the problem as described (in File Explorer, select Alt-P to show previews, select a PDF (with Preview visible) and attempt to delete it, and it gives an error)

However on the machine with Adobe Reader DC (version 2015.017.20050), I seem to be able to delete similar files.

In Adobe Reader, the Preview Handler DLL file is

Code:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\PDFPrevHndlr.dll

and the file version is 11.0.3.37, dated 05/09/2013

In Adobe Reader DC, the file is

Code:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\PDFPrevHndlr.dll

And the File version is 15.7.20033.2203, dated 17/03/2015

So I would suggest that Adobe have done something to address the issue in their latest Reader product.

What I don't know is whether it's possible to update Adobe Acrobat in the same way, or whether it would be possible for Adobe Reader DC (and in particular its "Preview Handler") to coexist with the version of Acrobat Professional being used by the OP.

"So I would suggest that Adobe have done something to address the issue in their latest Reader product.

What I don't know is whether it's possible to update Adobe Acrobat in the same way, or whether it would be possible for Adobe Reader DC (and in particular its "Preview Handler") to coexist with the version of Acrobat Professional being used by the OP."

DavidY; thanks for taking the time to examine the differences. I went a little further. I had Acrobat Pro XI 11.0.15. I saw that 11.0.17 is the latest and the release notes for .16 included the preview/delete issue for Windows 8 and 10, so I was hopeful the updating latest quarterly update from July (which rarely changes much so I don't check very often) would fix.

I updated and, alas, same problem. I downloaded Reader DC and, exactly the same PDFPrevHndlr.dll that you found, did indeed fix the problem the OP and I have. I was able to delete from Preview view w/o the error message.

I then renamed the PDFPrevHndlr.dll in Acrobrat Pro to PDFPrevHndlr.old and copied the PDFPrevHndlr.dll from Reader to Acrobat Pro. It also worked ! So, indeed Acrobat Pro XI and Reader DC can live side by side.

However, when I uninstalled Reader DC, the problem re-emerged so it's not possible to just copy over the PDFPrevHndlr.dll from Reader to Pro. Seems only current solution is to have both programs on the machine. Thanks for your time and effort.

mrgeek said:

However, when I uninstalled Reader DC, the problem re-emerged so it's not possible to just copy over the PDFPrevHndlr.dll from Reader to Pro. Seems only current solution is to have both programs on the machine.

Thanks for testing - I don't have Acrobat Pro so I couldn't do that part. Good to know it's a possible workaround and they can coexist.

I wonder if un-installing Reader DC then un-registered the Registry keys which go with the DLL? (Perhaps - I'm just guessing.) There's some info here if you're interested in how Preview Handlers are held in the registry - not that I know any more than I read here.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.85%29.aspx

However I'm always a bit cautious of copying random DLLs around without fully knowing how they work or what dependencies are with other DLLs. Installing both Acrobat and Reader DC (presumably Acrobat needs to be first and Reader DC second) seems to be the safest way.