Tech: Adobe Acrobat failed to load Core DLL

Subject: Tech: Adobe Acrobat failed to load Core DLL
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 04:36 PM

I try to open Adobe Acrobat, which has worked okay previously, and I get an error message to the effect, "Adobe Acrobat Failed to install its Core DLL."

I had this same problem a year or two back, and somehow got it fixed, but I forget where I got the help, and forget what I did that straightened it out. That was in a previous version of Acrobat.

For what it's worth, this is a new installation of a new version of Acrobat, installed August 2, 2012. It worked okay for about two weeks, then the problem described above.

Doesterr
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Report from an online System Info Utility:
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3, 32 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz, x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 4
Processor Count: 1
RAM: 1023 Mb
Graphics Card: S3 ViRGE DX/GX, 4 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 34718 MB, Free - 7233 MB; F: Total - 114442 MB, Free - 97895 MB;
Motherboard: Compaq, 0784h
Antivirus: Norton 360 Premier Edition, Updated: Yes, On-Demand Scanner: Enabled

Subject: RE: Tech: Adobe Acrobat failed to load Core DLL
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Aug 12 - 09:56 PM

Since it worked previously, after installation, it's likely that the DLL file is there and just - for some reason - failed to load.

The only thing I see is that your RAM is near the "recommended level" but may be inadequate if you've got a lot of stuff loading at startup. At ~1GB you're well within what Mickeysoft says you need, but I ran 4GB when I was using WinXP, after getting quite a few "insufficient memory" warnings.

You might get improvement by checking in the /Start/Startup folder (I think I remember that, but I can't be sure exactly where it is) to see if there's something that's being started at boot that you could move to another folder temporarily to avoid having it start.

Your HD is also smaller than I can even remember using, and with default settings WinXP will only use about 10% of HD free space for Temp memory, so you only have around 700 MB usable there and that might be holding you back. A Defrag might put a little more of what you have into usable space, but WinXP isn't supposed to require contiguous free space (like Win98 et. al. did) so the improvement likely would be marginal. A disk cleanup to get as much trash out of Temp space (and/or temp files) might help.

The DLL should be in C:\Program Files\ADOBE\... or something similar, unless you elected to put it somewhere else, so you could at least look to see if it's present.

It's been quite a while since we've used Adobe Acrobat so I don't really know what resources it needs in any remotely current versions.

Of course it is possible that the DLL file just got mangled and is corrupted. Easiest approach may be to reinstall the program (on top of the existing one if the installer lets you do that). The DLL files do get modified during program runs whenever you change program settings, so a power glitch or another program that interfered with a "write" to the HD could have done something, but WinXP disk controls are generally pretty well "safetied."

Of course, you've already rebooted and tried loading Acrobat before you open a lot of other junk ???????

(All sort of guesswork, of course, since I gave up on XP some time back.)

John