Microsoft Edge keeps "hijacking" PDFs?

[Ander3232]

Hey guys,

Sumatra is great. However, since a recent Windows 10 update, Microsoft Edge has made itself my default PDF viewer, and I can't seem to set it back to Sumatra.

Windows' help says:

1. Open Settings (Win+G) and go to "Default Apps".
2. At the bottom of the list, click "Set default apps by file type".
3. In the list that appears, scroll down to the ".pdf" extension, click the default app, and select the app you want to use.

But when I try this, the window closes, and it has no effect. Any ideas? Thanks!

[GitHubRulesOK]

Varies from time to time, and MS use of Edge as PDF default, thus blocks SumatraPDF from setting itself as the default for PDF.

Resetting should work, until as you say some related MS update fettling.

Usually I don't seem to need to as I use both, but select any pdf and then replace handler with exe should work

instructions you quote and per https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/docs/Set-as-default-PDF-viewer pick on an existing historic icon you need a fresh link

[Ander3232]

Thanks! I'd used the method you described, but apparently it was a registry change that didn't take effect till I'd restarted Windows. You know how it is—sometimes you have to restart, sometimes you don't... It's the Redmond Mystique (LOL). (I have friends running Linux who only have to restart when they replace hardware.) Cheers!

[GitHubRulesOK]

Tech Support Question 1 "Did you try switch off at the wall and count to 10 ?"

[Ander3232]

Or as they often said in The IT Crowd, "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" 😄

[petergroft]

The problem is that when MS updates Windows, it is wiping out the user preferences and, consequently, hijacking PDFs to MS Edge rather than Acrobat (or any other brand of PDF reading program). Your preferred program for reading PDFs is ignored by the new version of Windows.

To stop Microsoft Edge from hijacking PDF files
In the left-hand column, click on Cookies and sites permissions; In the right-hand screen click on PDF documents in the middle of the Site permissions list; Finally, turn on the option Always open PDF files externally.

Hope This Helps,
Peter

[Ander3232]

Hi Peter,

In the current Edge, the closest I could find to what you described was:

Settings > Site Permissions > Cookies and Site Data

But there was nothing there about PDFs. So I searched for pdf in the Settings search box, and found "PDF Documents". When I clicked that, I saw the option to "Always open PDF files externally", which I turned on. (Microsoft loves moving things around, don't they? 🤷🏽‍♂️ )

Thanks, I hope that works. Cheers, A.

[GitHubRulesOK]

@petergroft @Ander3232 both Chrome and Edge will keep changing so todays Edge PDF setting is like this (there is still some confusion there since it fails to explain ALL pdfs are downloaded first into Edges sandbox cache, before view)

In chrome its buried deep in "Site Settings"

[Ander3232]

LOL, that's now how it appeared in the version of Edge that MS has deigned to push on me... Anyway, searching for "pdf" is easy enough, and thanks again for the help. 🙋🏽‍♂️

[Ander3232]

Varies from time to time, and MS use of Edge as PDF default, thus blocks SumatraPDF from setting itself as the default for PDF.
Resetting should work, until as you say some related MS update fettling.
Usually I don't seem to need to as I use both, but select any pdf and then replace handler with exe should work
instructions you quote and per https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/docs/Set-as-default-PDF-viewer pick on an existing historic icon you need a fresh link

Months later—and none of this works now. Probably more Windows Updates changing things... That's usually what causes problems like these.

SumatraPDF doesn't even appear in the "Open with > Select another app" list now. (I can manually navigate to it and select it to open that file in it, but the default isn't changed.) And if I go to Windows' own "Settings > Default Programs > by file type" and select Sumatra, the window crashes, and the setting is unchanged.

I can only assume Microsoft wants Edge to keep popping up, as most of what people do on PCs now involves browsers. I wish Bill Gates had stuck with his CD-ROM vision of the future. 😛

[Ander3232]

Update—success!

Don't install the 64-bit version of SumatraPDF, even if you have a 64-bit system. Install the 32-bit version, and Windows lets you set it as the default PDF app. (Right-click a file > Open With > "Choose another app" > select SumatraPDF and select "Always use this app".) Yay!

I have no idea why this fails with the x64 Sumatra, but there's always seemed to be some lingering flakiness in the 64-bit-app world... Go figure.

[GitHubRulesOK]

@Ander3232
using that same recommended method with 64 bit I have no problems other than any "natural" crashes in the pre-release (currently this month a few due to annotation handling by MuPDF)

see the suggestion in #2404

[Ander3232]

Okay, then—if I'm following you, you're saying my solution would be useful only to people for whom the 64-bit version didn't work. Even I can comprehend that. It's good to be clear about these things, though. 😄

[TairikuOokami]

I install Sumatra via winget, so it registers properly and it is running as x64.
As for Edge I use policies to make sure, it does not hijack PDF anymore.

reg add "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge" /v "AlwaysOpenPdfExternally" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f
reg add "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge" /v "ShowPDFDefaultRecommendationsEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f