Detecting if ADOBE is installed.

Question

So I think i am gonna give up my search for a good open source PDF viewer with the ability to have links (table of contents) and bookmarks (create and edit). If anyone knows of a library, please, please, PLEASE, send it this way.

So my plan now is this: Use the adobe reader active X control on my WinForm and just let the user control it. BUT the problem is that if someone does not have the adobe reader installed, then I would just use the web-browser control with the file location property set to the PDF path.

So I need to check if adobe reader is installed. If not, then I want to load up the webbrowser. ( i can have the active x, and the webbrowser on different forms).

Answer 1

I would say to do a try/catch on the part that use adobe (I dont know if the creation of the control or the load of pdf file is where it might fail the try) and if it catch an exception, it means that they do not have Adobe Reader.

You could also check for the adobeR32.exe (I think it is the file name) in Adobe Reader path (if you know it will always be there).