Good software: Copilot Bad software: Adobe Acrobat

When my Dad innocently uninstalled Adobe Acrobat Reader 6 (because he thought he didn't need it), he ran into this problem. Unfortunately, he found also found that he couldn't re-install it either. Or even use the Microsoft "system restore" facility to go back to what he had before. Or install any other Adobe application!

Just try following the advice on the Adobe website!:

"This is a topic that is easily resolved. The solutions have been posted by me, Graffiti, MarkATS and others.
Now-you need to do the uninstall by using Add/Remove Programs first. Then you will want to do the rest manually-IF-you cannot find the Microsoft Uninstall Utility. Even then-you MUST find ALL references to Adobe Reader (all versions) and remove them from the Registry as well as remove ALL Reader folders.
WARNING_Editing the Registry is Dangerous! You do so at your own risk.
Yes, there are programs to help you-again please SEARCH for solutions. "

How do you fancy talking someone through the above over a phone line? I certainly didn't fancy it. As it turns out, the above advice wasn't really correct anyway.

Unfortunately, my Dad was desperate though - he uses the program as an integral part of the work that he does (to generate pdf files that he distributes to clients). So aborting Adobe altogether wasn't an option, much as I would have liked to do this... because they really deserve to go out of business for writing such crappy software

I can not believe how a software company like Adobe could make such a pig's ear of their flagship product. Unforgiveable.

They deserve to go out of business.

On the other hand, Fog Creek software, authors of Copilot, deserve to have money rain down on them. Using this program, I was able to remotely fix my Dad's computer... it simply wouldn't have been fixable from over here otherwise.