How to make Adobe Reader 7.0 load faster

Whenever I install Adobe’s Acrobat Reader I also uninstall most of the pointless plugins, to speed up its dog-slow startup process.

So here’s what I just did on my machine:

1. In Edit-Preferences, do the following:
   • General tab: turn off “Automatically save document changes”
   • Internet tab: turn off all three checkboxes
   • Page Display tab: turn on “CoolType”
   • Search tab: turn off “Enable fast find”
   • Startup tab: turn off “Show messages and automatically update”
2. In View-Toolbars, turn off “Rotate view” and “Search the internet”. Under “Show button labels”, turn them all on so you can figure out what the heck those icons means.
3. Fire up Windows Explorer and do the following:
   • Navigate to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Reader\
   • I discovered there's a subdirectory called “Optional” that contains a readme with the following text: "Put unused plug-ins in the optional directory."
   • Move all the .api files from the plug_ins subdirectory to “Optional” subdirectory, except for AcroForm.api (for form-filling) and EScript.api (dependency of AcroForm.api).

What you wanted to actually know what all those plug-ins did so that you can make up your own mind? Move them back again, launch Acrobat Reader, and go to Help-About Adobe Plugins to learn what each plug-in does and what its dependencies are. Oh, and if you speed up Adobe 7.0 by removing some plugins, the update process will have left some subdirectories under C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\, so if you’re tidy-minded you can delete those too.