Windows 10. After the last update, all of my PDFs now appear on my desktop with the Chrome icon and “Chrome HTML Document (.pdf)” as their property. How do I shift them back to appearing as an Adobe document so I can easily differentiate them from Chrome webpage saves? Batch change is preferable. Thanks.
Right click on one and choose “Open With…” then “Choose Another App” (even if Acrobat is on the right-click list). Check the “Always use this app to open .pdf files” box at the bottom of the window, then choose Acrobat.
Thank you! I was clicking Acrobat from the list with no success. Is this shift to Chrome a feature or a bug?
Chrome probably auto-updated itself and “helpfully” set itself as the default program for all sorts of file types. Or tricked you into agreeing to it at some point. Grr.
Yes, maybe this. Windows programmers have a lot of power to mess up user settings, preferences and general behavior of Windows, like for instance changing the standard file associations with programs like in this case. Another such annoying programming behavior is stealing the focus from other applications, which is easily done. When I still was a programmer, I always tried to avoid such tricks, and no trustful program/company should trick you into such shenanigans.
“Clearly, since you’re using my software, you want to use it for everything it can possibly be used for, even those unexpected surprises where you’re using some other old boring software because you didn’t realize my software could do that too, and better, because it’s my software and it’s newer. You’re welcome.”
I actually just recently decided to experiment with locking the registry key that lets Chrome change these things. In my case, I changed it so that Chrome always opens with a couple of options I always use.
(Note, I’m not recommending this at this time. It is entirely an experiment.)
Interesting! No, I didn’t agree to anything. I will shake my fist at Chrome.