Adobe is now officially as bad as Microsoft.

Published on February 28, 2026 By Jafo In Life, the Universe and Everything

Microsoft no longer supports its all-time most popular OS.

We get that.

It also FORCES people to purchase new hardware that is compatible with its new adware [OS].

Around about the 19th of Feb [last week] Adobe Acrobat Reader auto updated...

To a version that is broken in Windows 7.

People are reliant on "legacy" OS systems { I use the word 'legacy' with sarcasm], often in critical and time-sensitive situations.

And good old Adobe auto-updates and breaks.

It's such a sophisticated and capable company it cannot offer an opt-out for compatibility with updates.

How about an OS VERSION check before providing and installing something incompatible?

Kinda makes sense... other people do it.

Comments

DrJBHL

on Feb 28, 2026

AI has taken over their thinking for them...somehow I think Natural Stupidity needs to be worked on first. Adobe? That's spelled A-n-a-t-h-e-m-a.

pelaird

on Feb 28, 2026

Time to find a new PDF app. I use PDF-XChange which is comparable to Adobe Acrobat. There are many others available. Not sure about compatibility with Windows 7 though.

You could also try deleting Adobe Creative Cloud, but it requires a special cleaning tool which is available from Adobe, but they make it very difficult to find.

You could also change the settings in your router to disable Adobe Reader’s access to the internet.

Jafo

on Feb 28, 2026

pelaird

reply 2

Time to find a new PDF app. I use PDF-XChange which is comparable to Adobe Acrobat. There are many others available. Not sure about compatibility with Windows 7 though.

You could also try deleting Adobe Creative Cloud, but it requires a special cleaning tool which is available from Adobe, but they make it very difficult to find.

You could also change the settings in your router to disable Adobe Reader’s access to the internet.

Yep, there's "SumatraPDF" as an alternative...got that.

Also have systematically blocked everything to do with Adobe updating...but apparently it resets if you reboot [seems they are violating all sorts of legal restrictions].

I have a current functional cure to it and I often go months without reboot and am monitoring their forum for when they are hit by class action and actually get off their arses and do the right thing.

DrJBHL

on Feb 28, 2026

Jafo

reply 3

Also have systematically blocked everything to do with Adobe updating...but apparently it resets if you reboot [seems they are violating all sorts of legal restrictions].

If you're giving Connection Explorer a try, you can block that Adobe connection via it...might it turn the trick? SumatraPDF is a good alternative to Adobe. PDFGear is a useful app to have. It converts file types and also is an excellent pdf editor.

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