>>>>You probably know that Acrobat 6.0x is a pig - takes forever to load, then when you close it it still remains as an active task in your Task Manager hogging up 32MB of RAM.
>>>>
>>>>Both of these problems are fixed in 7.0. Kudos to Adobe.
>>>>
>>>>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1751157,00.asp
>>>
>>>Would you happen to know if it still has an insane and pointless dependency on the Windows Journal Viewer? I've been routinely removing version 6 when it comes bundled with new machines, and installing version 4 instead, for that reason.
>>
>>I don't know. All I know is I have *never* installed Journal Viewer on my W2K Pro box and all versions of Acrobat Reader I've had on it have run just fine.
>
>Interesting. The Win 2K systems I've bought recently all came with Windows Journal Viewer in the Start menu but not actually installed. I've never bothered to install it either. However, despite the fact that Windows Journal Viewer is not actually installed on these machines, several users at my workplace, when attempting to view .pdf documents over the Web, have encountered problems related to Windows Journal Viewer. There's even a specific note about it at the Adobe site. This note indicates that there is indeed a dependency between Acrobat Reader versions 6 and 7 and Windows Journal Viewer. The note claims that the problem is due to "corrupt registry entries" for WJV. (I won't even go into the absurdities that ensue if you actually try to "repair" WJV or download and install the latest version from the MS website. Suffice it to say that it doesn't work.) Why WJV registry entries should be corrupt--or even exist--when
>the product hasn't been installed, I can't imagine. Even if my vendor somehow messed up the Windows install and, thereby, the WJV settings (which I doubt), I still shouldn't be seeing this problem. Why Adobe--after releasing 5 successful and reliable versions--should have suddenly decided to introduce this dependency on WJV components in a viewer for a document standard that is supposed to be platform-independent, is the real heart of the matter.

While the document standard is platform-independent the various viewers are decidedly not, and rightfully, even necessarily so. My guess would be that on the Windows platform Adobe chose to make use of a Windows .DLL that is also used by WJV and that DLL hell has ensued. Or perhaps Adobe has been using the .DLL all along, and only recently WJV has started to use it as well. The article you cite says that Acrobat and WJV share components; this does not mean that Acrobat depends on WJV. Solution 1 in the article recommends uninstalling WJV if it's not needed so it's hard to see how there could be a dependency.

I'd never heard of this issue before you pointed it out, and I've never encountered it myself, or any of my clients at any of their sites. Some have installed WJV because it appears in the list of available Windows Updates and they do it for "completeness". However, none of my clients actually use it.

Based on my experience I'd consider the problem to be uncommon or rare.