Knowledge Base

Error message when you start an Office program that has the Adobe PDFMaker add-in installed: "A version of Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker that is known to cause instabilities"

Article ID: 302596

Article Last Modified on 10/25/2007

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007
Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2007
Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007
Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Microsoft Office Word 2007
Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Microsoft Office Excel 2003
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Microsoft Office Word 2003
Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2003
Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2003
Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003
Microsoft Office Project Standard 2003
Microsoft Excel 2002 Standard Edition
Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 2002 Standard Edition
Microsoft Excel 2000 Standard Edition
Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 Standard Edition
Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q302596

SYMPTOMS

When you start or when you exit one of the Microsoft Office programs that is listed in the "Applies to" section, you may receive an error message that resembles one of the following error messages:

2007 Microsoft Office system

Microsoft program name has detected that your computer has a version of Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker that is known to cause instabilities in program name. To resolve this issue, download an update from Adobe Systems' Web site.

To determine the unique number that is associated with the message that you receive, press CTRL+SHIFT+I. The following number appears in the lower-right corner of this message:

101463

Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier versions

Microsoft program name has detected that your computer has a version of Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker that is known to cause instabilities in program name. You can download a free update that fixes the problem from Adobe's Web site.

In this error message, program name is the Microsoft Office program that you were working with when the error occurred.

CAUSE

Adobe PDFMaker is included with Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5. It was released in December 2001. This version of PDFMaker is designed to work with Microsoft Office XP. It is incompatible with Office 2003 and the 2007 Office system.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, delete all occurrences of the Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker add-in for your Office program.

Note Renaming all occurrences of the Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker add-in does not resolve the problem. Renaming the Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker add-ins only prevents you from using the add-ins.

To delete all occurrences of the Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker add-in, follow these steps:

Windows Vista

Click Start , type pdfmaker.dot (for Microsoft Office Word), pdfmaker.xla (for Microsoft Office Excel), or pdfmaker.ppa (for Microsoft Office PowerPoint), and then press ENTER.
Right-click the file, and then click Delete.

Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Windows 2000

Click Start, and then click Search.
Click All files and folders.
In the All or part of the file name box, type pdfmaker.dot (for Microsoft Office Word), pdfmaker.xla (for Microsoft Office Excel), or pdfmaker.ppa (for Microsoft Office PowerPoint), and then press ENTER.
Right-click the file, and then click Delete.

RESOLUTION

Install Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker version 6.0 or a later version. For more information about how to install Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker version 6.0 or a later version, visit the following Adobe Web site:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=1&platform=Windows

Note Adobe might change the location of their download site for Acrobat for Windows. If that occurs, please visit Adobe's home Web site:

http://www.adobe.com/

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this add-in and about how to troubleshoot other utilities, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

276001 Adobe Acrobat buttons are missing or you receive an error message after you upgrade to Word

820919 How to troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word 2003 or Word 2002

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, about the performance or reliability of these products.

Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.

Additional query words: prb adobe acrobat PDFMaker.dot add-in wd2002 hang OFFXP officeaviss 2003 word wd2003 XL2007 excel2k7 excel12 xl2007 xl2k7 xl12

Keywords: kberrmsg kbinvalidpagefault kbaddin kbprb kbprod2web kbstartprogram kbexpertisebeginner kbresolve KB302596

Microsoft KB Archive/302596

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