Adobe Reader ] 21208 update breaks Acrobat Reader on Windows 7 – Fix
It seems that Adobe rolled out an automatic update that breaks Adobe Reader on Windows 7 with the error message “This program couldn’t launch because the object api-ms-win-core-winrt-l1-1-0.dll is missing”.
So someone didn’t verify the application before rolling out an update and breaking thousands of installations. Looks like abd QC for me. Interestingly, if you download Adobe Reader from the official page and Select Windows 7 as an OS, it still offers you the broken version to download instead of a working one and it also seems, even though the error has already been reported, Adobe still continues rolling out the broken update giving me a flood of calls by users whose Adobe Read installation suddenly gets broken. Thank you, Adobe! >:-(
As this error is so common and the broken update still is getting rolled out, I made a little batch script in order to fix it to save work. Here are the instructions on how to get it working again:
- Uninstall broken Adobe Reader from Control Panel
- Download AcroRdrDC2500121111_de_DE.exe fpr German or AcroRdrDC2500121111_en_US.exe for English
- After installing the older working version, disable all update-mechanisms and also remove the RdrCEF.exe and AdobeCollabsync.exe bloat that doesn’t work on Windows 7 anyways and also eats up huge amounts of memory in the background for nothing.
I made a batch script (with help of AI to save myself time) that automates the process, download this script (right click – save as…) and execute is as an Administrator. You may want to read its contents first if you do not trust it. For this you can open it with notepad. - Launch Adobe Reader, should work again
Here is what the script does:
- Disable and stop the Adobe updater service
- Delete the Adobe Updater Task that runs peridodically
- Set a policy to disable updtes in Adobe Reader
- Remove the bloatware by renaming the executables so that they don’t get found and also rename updater executables so that they won’t accidentally launch.
In case you reinstall the Adobe Reader, the bloatware and updater will get reenabled again.
Hope this helps.
System programmer
Comments
I’m not a programmer/coder, though I’m an experienced enough user to be comfortable doing things like editing the registry, if I have clear instructions.
I use Windows 7 Pro 64-bit because i have three legacy programs that won’t function after 7 (two of them require XP, so I use the virtual machine in 7).
I have been having the same problem with Acrobat Reader that is described in the blog that I found this in, and right now I can’t get Reader to even open.
I believe I can follow your instructions above, though it looks like the download link is for a German version?
Reader is 32-bit; does that make a difference on a 64 bit machine?
I am grateful for, and appreciate, what you and folks like you do to help those of us who are just experienced enough to be dangerous.
And, thank you in advance for any guidance you might provide me.
~zane
I also installed 32bit reader on a 64bit Win 7 machine, no isseus with that.
I now linked English installer too.
So you uninstalled broken Adobe Reader, installed the 2500121111 version and it doesn’t open?
The batch script just disables the update afterwards, but Adobe Reader should open.
I now fixed the link to the batch file, sorry. I put it up in a hurry before leaving.
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