Losing Faith

It is a dirty fact of computing life that we spend more time fiddling with the system than doing productive work. Keeping the virus signatures up to date, the software functional, the operating system patched, the files backed up and waiting on hold for tech support specialist, Abu Nidal, to tell you to reinstall everything and call back later is the weekly routine.



For the last two months I wake up my beige box each morning to be reminded that Adobe updates are available and ready to be installed. That seems like a nice feature. I click on the dialog and accept the update. My screen goes grey and I get asked by Windows 7 if I trust Adobe to mess with my system. Momentarily I wonder why Microsoft doesn't know who Adobe is? By now they should have heard of them.

I approve of the change. Boxes pop up, messages advise and little green progress bars flicker across the screen. Finally an error message filled with back-slashes, symbols and meaningless registry entries appears telling me the update failed. Nothing seems to have changed however and Adobe Reader reports that it is version 9.3.1. OK, no harm, no foul.

Two days later, same game, same score.

This takes more effort apparently. I eliminate the middle-man and cut Abu Nidal out of the picture. I uninstall Adobe Reader version 9.3.1 and go to the Adobe website to download Adobe Reader fresh and new.

I install the download and note in passing that the Adobe Reader I uninstalled was 251 MB and the new download is only 40 MB. After installation, I check and see that the version is 9.0. Am I wrong in thinking that the Adobe download would be the latest version?

This morning dawns bright and hot in Texas. Adobe advises me sweetly that an upgrade is available for install. I accept, approve and get the same routine. Error at the end.

Frankly, there is no bloody reason I need Adobe Reader. Office 2010 version of Word both reads and saves .PDF files. I think Adobe Reader's time has passed at my house.