Our readers frequently ask why Adobe Reader 6 is so slow to load when they open a PFD file. The main reason is that the Reader doesn’t load alone – it comes with a crowd of plug-ins. If you watch the splash screen carefully you can see their names flip past. Most people need only a handful of these plug-ins. If you’d like to load PDF files faster, follow these simple instructions:

· Launch Windows Explorer

· Navigate to the Program Files folder, usually c:\Program Files

· Below this, navigate to Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader

· In the right-hand pane, find the folder named plug_ins

· Right-click it and choose Rename, changing it to plug_ins_NOT

· Create a new folder named plug_ins

· From the plug_ins_NOT folder, copy just three files to the new plug_ins folder: EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api

That’s all you need to do. The next time you load a PDF file, only those three plug_ins will come along, and you should notice a significant speed improvement. If you need to read encrypted PDFs or if for any other reason you want to undo this change, simply close Adobe Reader, delete the plug_ins folder and rename plug_ins_NOT back to plug_ins. – NJR

Neil J. Rubenking, “Solutions: User to User,” PC Magazine, 19 October, 2004, 86