Death to the Adobe imperialists!

I am trying to establish Ghostcript, which I've been using for years, as
the prime and only Acrobat viewer on the system. It was set that way a
while ago (using assoedit), at least for *.pdf and I think for Adobe
Acrobat type, but now no go: it brings up Acrobat, so that piece of
antique garbage can razz me about how the file is not usable by software
that Adobe refused to update to read its own new format. Right, there's an
Innotek port that supposedly works, but I want to be able to use
Ghostscript anyway.

Here's the deal: I have set a Ghostscript object to be the default handler
for both Acrobat type and *.pdf. Double-click, and the WPS calls Acrobat.
(I'm doing lots of reboots here, understand, to try to get the new modes
really established.) I have set GS as the *only* handler for these. Same
result.
I have deleted both those specs from assoedit: not the handlers, but the
recognition of either Adobe Acrobat type or *.pdf as even existing. The
WPS now calls Acrobat.

I have deleted every goddam trace of Acrobat from the system, mainly by
wiping the files with all zeroes. There was one aapdf.dll, dated 1997,
that wouldn't delete, obviously because it was active, so I killed it from
a maintenance partition. Now the acrobat types have blank icons on screen,
but when double-clicked they produce an error box explaining that Adobe
Acrobat 3.0 doesn't seem to load. Assoedit is set to run GSview for both
the aforementioned types. I have run the INI file cleanup and seen a whole
lot of objects zapped now that acrobat is not there. The wps still tries
to invoke it.

Can this undead monstrosity be killed? The more I fail to get rid of it,
the more I never want to see the thing again. Do I need extra-strength
garlic, a stake of Transylvanian ash plant, or a cross? I'll hire a
Haitian zombie consultant if need be.

--
Dan Drake
dd@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.dandrake.com/
porlockjr.blogspot.com
.

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