Originally posted by: kranky
A way to speed up opening Acrobat Reader is to move the plug-ins you don't need out of \Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\Plug_ins. Create a directory to save them (in case you need them later) and move them to (for example) \Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader\Plug_ins_disabled.
You might find you need only these three: EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api
Or another way to speed up the full version of Acrobat is to hold down the shift key when double-clicking on the Acrobat desktop icon, when you only want to view or read an existing PDF.