Reader or Acrobat loads instead of other application and displays unsupported file type error

When you run any program in Windows, Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat loads instead and displays the error message, "not a supported file type", on Microsoft Windows Vista.

Reason

An application or virus has corrupted the EXE extension in Windows, when Windows asked for a program to open EXE files with, Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat were at the top of the list of applications when you clicked OK. When this happens you associate Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat with the .exe extension which is typically reserved for application execution.

Solution

Note: This is an issue with a third party application replacing the EXE extension on Microsoft Windows Vista, and not an issue created by Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Inc. Adobe technical support does not provide support for third-party software and provides this information as a courtesy only.

Use the Windows registry editor to restore EXE class defaults.

Disclaimer: This procedure involves editing the Windows registry. Adobe does not provide support for editing the registry, which contains critical system and application information. Make sure to back up the registry before editing it. For more information about the registry, see the Windows documentation or contact Microsoft.

Additional Information

Adobe Technical support has tracked this issue down to two products that may cause this issue: the Intuit update manager for Quickbooks, and the Corel update manager for Wordperfect. For more information on these products contact Intuit Corporation or Corel Corporation respectively.