The tutor reveals how he solved a problem with Windows Live Mail.

As the in-house computer troubleshooter, I received the following request from my wife today: “I can’t open .pdf attachments from within the email program, but I always could before. Now I have to copy them to the desktop and open them thence. Please fix it so they can be opened from within the email program like before.”

My wife rarely brings me a computer problem. We run Windows 7 with Bitdefender, and update our software regularly. However, the rare occasion I learn of a problem seems just as often after an update. I know that Windows did an update a few days back; perhaps an unanticipated change resulted.

The problem of not being able to open .pdf attachments from within the email program, so having to copy them to the desktop to open from there, is commonly reported on the Web. I looked at several solutions, none of which turned out to be the fix for my case.

After an hour’s digging around, I opened Adobe Reader XI from the Start menu. On the toolbar I clicked Help; the resulting dropdown menu includes the choice Repair Adobe Reader Installation. I clicked that, and was greeted with the question Do you really want to repair? Nervously I informed the program that, indeed, I did want to repair it. The repair began. After a couple of notices and progress bars, I was informed that, to complete the repair, I had to restart the computer. After doing so, the email attachments could once again be opened from within the email program.

That’s how I fixed the problem.

Good luck with your computer troubleshooting: )

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.