[Editors Note: This piece originally appeared in Duff Johnson's Talking PDF blog which I recommend you visit regularly. Duff is the CEO of Appligent Document Solutions, he is also a well-known PDF industry innovator, public speaker, and contributor to industry blogs and events such as Seybold Seminars and PDF Conference. Visit his LinkedIn page for more information.]
FULL DISCLOSURE: While I am an occasional consultant to Adobe Systems (among others), this review is objective.
Cutting through the Bloatware Bloviation
Almost every review of PDF software (some examples here, here and here) starts or ends with the complaint …

I’ve just loaded up the latest release candidate of Windows 7 Ultimate (version 6, build 7100) — it was an upgrade on the previous (semi-dead-like-a-slug) 32-bit Vista installation. Packed it with the latest Adobe Reader (9.1 at the time, and 42mb download) for Windows Vista. Tried my best to load a PDF online and … no change. Right now, if you’re looking for a solution, try Foxit Reader…

A few days ago I tested Adobe Reader 9 on Windows 7 and didn’t discover any major issues. Adobe Reader worked correctly despite the fact that Windows 7 is not yet a supported platform. Today I thought I’d try the same with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro.

Installing software on an unsupported operating system isn’t usually a good idea. In fact, it is quite often fraught with risk, as a lot of people found in 2006 when they tried to install software on Windows Vista that was originally been built for Windows XP and hadn’t been updated yet. Luckily — so far — it seems like it is going to be a far smoother transition from Windows Vista to Windows 7.