Unable to open attachments in PDF Messenger

Products

• Symantec Products

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to open an attachment in a Secure PDF, you receive an warning that Adobe cannot open the file attachment. The popup may be similar to the following:

Acrobat cannot open the file attachment "NOTEPAD.EXE" because your PDF file attachment...

 

Resolution

This is the result of a default Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader attachment setting. This application behavior can be modified by editing the registry. This article describes the process to enable opening file attachments in Secure PDF files using the Windows Registry.

 

Warning: Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on the computer. For more information on backing up the registry see the following article on the Microsoft support site: How to back up and restore the registry

 

Windows 2000 & XP

 

1. Click Start>Run.
2. Type regedit in the open: field and click OK.
3. Browse to the one of the following registry keys:
   
   For Adobe Reader: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\ [version number] \FeatureLockDown\cDefaultLaunchAttachmentPerms
   
   For Adobe Acrobat Professional or Standard: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\ [version number] \FeatureLockDown\cDefaultLaunchAttachmentPerms
   
    
4. Double-click the sBuiltInPermList value.
5. Scroll through the Value data: to edit the value for the desired file extension.
6. To change how the attachment file type is treated, edit the number that appears directly after the file extension.

 

Windows Vista & Windows 7

 

1. Click Start.
2. In the Start Search field, type regedit and then click the regedit entry in the Programs results window.
3. Browse to the one of the following registry keys:
   
   For Adobe Reader: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\ [version number] \FeatureLockDown\cDefaultLaunchAttachmentPerms
   
   For Adobe Acrobat Professional or Standard: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\ [version number] \FeatureLockDown\cDefaultLaunchAttachmentPerms
   
    
4. Double-click the sBuiltInPermList or tBuiltInPermList value.
5. Scroll through the Value data: to edit the value for the desired file extension.
6. To change how the attachment file type is treated, edit the number that appears directly after the file extension.

The following table details the behavior settings for file extensions. Each file extension in the data value has a value of 0,1,2, or 3.

 

Value 0 1 2 3 Behavior Warning dialogue displays prompting user that file may be unsafe and offers two choices:   Open Permanently set to Prohibited. Warning dialogue displays prompting user that file may be unsafe and offers three choices:   Open Permanently set to Prohibited. Permanently set to Allowed. Always open this file type. Warning dialogue displays that the file cannot be opened.