Question ALL PDF Readers Crashing. Is Windows 10 the Buggy Culprit??

[chane]

I’ve been too long without a pdf reader on my new Windows 10 pc, but remembering the hell of trying to run Adobe reader. But even after uninstalling it and installing Fox It-and before that Nitro pdf readers-on my earlier Windows 7 pc, I had almost as many crashes. Practically every time I’d open a pdf on any of those apps it would throw a “not responding” message and freeze my pc until I had to close the whole program without closing the file first. Or it would freeze so hard that I’d have to hit Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

There’s no indication what Windows OS this user ran in 2016. I only know that no way could I deal with all of those suggested sets of troubleshooting fixes-and which may or may not have even worked.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/all-pdf-readers-constantly-crash/f271665f-0b89-495e-96d6-21b8cea55e2c

Adobe launched the pdf 30 nearly years ago-plenty of time for Microsoft engineers to have ensured that Windows OS played far better than it never did with this long ubiquitous file format.

My pc has an Intel 11th gen Xeon W-1390 processor and 32GB of ECC memory.

Please suggest the pdf reader know to have the history with the least reported crashes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I am now asking Microsoft

Hello, this is Microsoft Veeeeendows, speaking. You appear to be having trouble with your PC. Please PM your bank account details, and we can get started...

 

[chane]

Hello, this is Microsoft Veeeeendows, speaking. You appear to be having trouble with your PC. Please PM your bank account details, and we can get started...

Oops! That was text meant only for the Microsoft commnity forum. Will edit accordingly.

 

[mikeymikec]

I am confused. Windows 10 includes a PDF reader, Microsoft Edge. Google Chrome too, and Firefox.

Adobe launched the pdf 30 nearly years ago-plenty of time for Microsoft engineers to have ensured that Windows OS played far better than it never did with this long ubiquitous file format.

My pc has an Intel 11th gen Xeon W-1390 processor and 32GB of ECC memory.

Please suggest the pdf reader know to have the history with the least reported crashes.

Trust me, this isn't a problem with Windows, this is a 'your computer' problem.
Yours Sincerely, >100 million other Windows users.

Is it a particular PDF file you're having trouble with?

The only strange thing was that attempting to save the PDF would force me to Save As, and I usually oped to overwrite the original file with my new saved copy.

Because the original file is set as read-only. Probably because it was from an e-mail attachment. If so, this is completely normal behaviour.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Trust me, this isn't a problem with Windows, this is a 'your computer' problem.
Yours Sincerely, >100 million other Windows users.

Is it a particular PDF file you're having trouble with?

This, entirely.

That said, I had a PC *once* that had some issues with PDFs.

I don't recall if the problem was the storage drive flaking out, or the CPU overheating, or the RAM was bad. But I feel it's one of those three.

 

[mikeymikec]

That said, I had a PC *once* that had some issues with PDFs.

I don't recall if the problem was the storage drive flaking out, or the CPU overheating, or the RAM was bad. But I feel it's one of those three.

Yup, it's very likely to be a symptom of a greater issue with that computer. Another possibility is the graphics driver, though it would be very useful to know if opening PDFs is the only known issue with this computer (I'd be surprised if it was).

One thing that surprises me a bit is an 11th gen Intel PC running Windows 10? I would have expected it to be on Windows 11, partly because (I'd expect) that's probably what it ships with by default, and partly because Win10 has just shy of three years of security updates left. Did this PC ship with Win10?

 

[igor_kavinski]

The Microsoft Reader app isn't too bad either.

Get Reader from the Microsoft Store

Use Reader to open PDF, XPS and TIFF files. Reader makes it easy to view documents, search for words and phrases, take notes, fill in forms and print or share files. Please note that this app will be retired for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update 2017 and later. We recommend Microsoft Edge for PDF...

apps.microsoft.com

I think it's faster than opening in a browser or Adobe's bloated reader.

Regarding the crashes, it could be something related to PDFs, like some Windows Explorer extension added by a previously installed PDF software or maybe the antivirus hook doing crap. Uninstall anything related to PDF. If the crashes still happen, uninstall the antivirus and revert to using Windows Defender. If that also doesn't solve the issue, do a memtest86 overnight. If that comes out clear and crashes still happen, reset Windows: