How to Uninstall Adobe Reader – Help to Remove

In this article, we will look at the steps you need to perform to uninstall Adobe Reader 8.0 from your system.

The best and easiest way to uninstall the program is by using the Adobe Reader 8.0 uinistaller in the Add or Remove Programs utility. To achieve this, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Open the Start menu and select Control Panel.
2. Double click the Add or Remove Programs icon.
3. Select Adobe Reader 8.0, click Remove and follow the on-screen instructions to uninstall Adobe Reader 8.0.
4. Exit the Add or Remove Programs window and restart your PC if you are prompted to do so.

In some cases, the above steps fail to remove Adobe Reader 8.0 completely from your system, especially when the setup files are damaged or the software is partially installed. If this is the case, you will need to remove this program manually. The manual removal process of Adobe Reader 8.0 requires you to perform various steps. Each of the steps is illustrated below in detail:

Note: Make a printout of this document as you will need to perform manual removal steps in Safe Mode. Internet access is generally disabled in Safe Mode. To enable Safe Mode, restart your system and keep pressing the F8 key when the system loads. In the Startup Menu that appears, select Safe Mode.

Step 1: Use Command Prompt to remove the DLLs registered by Adobe Acrobat 8.0

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and select Task Manager.
2. Click the Processes tab, choose explorer.exe and click End Process.
3. A warning box will appear, ignore it and click Yes to proceed.
4. Now, in the Windows Task Manager window, go to File and select New Task.
5. Type cmd in the Open box and click OK.
6. In the command prompt window, type cd "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX" and press Enter.
7. Type del [File name] and press Enter to delete the DLLs registered by Adobe Acrobat 8.0. You need to remove the following files:
   • AcroIEHelper.dl
   • AcroPDF.dll
   • pdfshell.dll
8. Next, go to the Windows Task Manager window, and select File > New Task.
9. Here, type explorer.exe and press OK.
10. Finally, exit the Task Manger window.

Step 2: Remove Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Folders and Files

In order to ensure complete removal, you need to delete all folders and files for Adobe Acrobat 8.0. To achieve this, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the following folders and files and delete them.

• C:\Program Files\Adobe\ Acrobat 8.0
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\ Acrobat
• C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Adobe\ Acrobat
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\ Adobe Reader 8.lnk
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\ Adobe Reader 8.lnk
• C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\PLUGINS\ nppdf32.dll
• C:\Program Files\Netscape\Netscape Browser\plugins\ nppdf32.dll

Step 3: Remove Adobe Acrobat 8.0 registry Keys

Caution: These steps require you to edit entries within the registry. Take due care while performing this step, as any incorrect changes may cause irreversible damage to the registry and may render your system unusable. Also, make a registry back up before proceeding, as this allows you to roll back the system registry to its previous state in case of any problem. You may use an advanced registry cleaning tool, such as RegGenie to make full registry backups and to perform other registry maintenance activities.

To ensure complete removal, you need to remove all registry entries related to Adobe Acrobat 8.0. Go to Start > Run, type regedit and press OK to access the Registry Editor window. First, use the Find option available in the Edit menu of Registry Editor window to locate the following keys. Right-click the selected key and press Delete to remove it permanently.

You need to delete the following registry keys:

Finally, restart your PC in Normal Mode after you complete the above steps.

If you are unable to remove Adobe Reader 8 using Add or Remove Programs and if you find the manual process complex and time-consuming, you may use a user-friendly and efficient third-party program uninstaller tool, such as Perfect Uninstaller to perform the program removal. This tool is designed to enable you to uninstall even those programs that have corrupt files or that have been incompletely uninstalled or installed.