"The Acrobat PDFMaker Server could not be loaded" - a possiblesolution?

(My configuration: Adobe Acrobat 7 and Office 2000 running on Windows
2000, everything fully patched, with all the latest service packs and
updates)

For the past couple of months, whenever I've hit the 'Convert to Adobe
PDF' button in Excel or Word, I've got the error message "The Acrobat
PDFMaker Server could not be loaded. Do you want to run the installer
in repair mode?". Obviously, the first time it happened, I tried the
repair option, but it didn't work. Subsequently, I've spent DAYS
looking for solutions, and althought they seemed to work for some
people, none of them worked for me. I didn't really want to re-
install, as the (ridiculous) number of reboots involved would mean it
could waste yet another day.

I've just tried clicking the button again with SysInternal's RegMon
(registry monitor) running in the background, and it showed that Excel
was trying to access the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\App Paths
\AcroDist.exe

, and failing - it didn't exist in the registry.

So, I created the key, changed the (Default) entry to:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Distillr\acrodist.exe

, and added a new String Value called Path, which I set to:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Distillr\


And now it all appears to be working! (I didn't even have to restart
Excel.)

Now, I'm aware this may not be the complete solution to the problem;
if that's the case, I hope it points someone in the right direction!
(I'm still none the wiser as to why the problem started occurring in
the first place - all I can think of is that around that time, I
installed Publisher 2003, but that may be completely unrelated.)

Hope this helps someone


Nate

Nate's approach appeared to work for me as well.

Configuration: Adobe Acrobat 8.1.2 and Office 2007 running on Windows XP SP3 with all patches, updates and service packs applied.

(Check the path to acrodist.exe on your system.)

- Gary

The config for this case is;
O/S - XP SP3
Apps - Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Standard, Adobe PageMaker 7.0, MS Office 2003


There was a conflict with an older version of Adobe PDFMaker that
required an installation of Adobe Distiller 6.0 when Adobe Distiller 8.0
was already installed from a previous installation of Adobe Acrobat
Standard. So I removed from the registry any reference to acrodist.exe
to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\. Then verified or added in the
Registry;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\App
Paths
\AcroDist.exe, C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\acrodist.exe,
and added a new String Value called Path, which I set to:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\


Then I deleted C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat folders.

I did follow direction from various forum posting even re-registering
certian .dll files, but this worked for this situation.

During the installation of Adobe PageMaker 7.0, it says Adobe Distiller
is required for installation. Obviously thats not true. Not very
backwards tech-friendly if the software cant detect a newer version of
itself and not corrupt the newer software - Thanks Adobe for the hours
lost figuring this out! :-(


--
Twoschmoov
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