Yesterday, my wife had to print out a PDF; she went to our aging Windows box (I know, but every so often it’s useful) and double clicked on the file in question. Nothing happened. Adobe Reader didn’t open and no errors were displayed. I thought that was rather strange so I tried another PDF - as expected, it sprang to life. Huh - well, let’s take a look at versions. Sure enough, we were a rev or two behind so I downloaded the latest and greatest. We tried the original file again and there it was in all its glory.
Now, I can’t for the life of me understand what was so special about this file that it required the most up to date version of the software but it did. The lack of any notification is what sticks in my craw (and violates a couple of Nielsen’s usability heuristics.) Apparently Adobe just expects everyone to update their products in a timely fashion but if our proverbial grandparents are any indication, this might be a mistake. Should I have updated? Sure and I did, but is a simple message box saying something about needing version X to open this file too much to ask?
