Windows 10: PDF icons are all changed to Chrome browser icons.

All of my PDF files have had their icons changed to Chrome icons. The files no longer open with Acrobat Reader....they now open through the Chrome browser. I'm not sure what caused this. The only thing I can think of is that my girlfriend was on my computer renaming a PDF when I noticed a popup that asked something about file extension or destination. I tried to tell her not to hit the "yes" button, but I was too late. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the problem. Can anyone help me to get the icons changed back to PDF icons?

:)

 

File icons don't match program

I recently had occasion to uninstall Google Chrome, using Revo Uninstaller, and run a bunch of cleaner type programs, to try to get rid of an issue I was facing with said browser (not malware related AFAIK).

Afterwards I reinstalled Chrome and set it as the default for all file types and protocols that it can open, using the Set Default Program item under Default Programs in the Control panel (because the Windows 10 Settings app's "Choose default applications"
things doesn't appear to actually do anything most of the time). I noticed that this had associated the .PDF file type with Chrome.

I use PDF-XChange viewer to read PDFs so I tried to change this following the same method. This worked correctly in that the files now open with the correct viewer, but the icons used for that file type is still marked as opening with Chrome! I notice that
if I look at the .pdf. item under the Set Associations item also under Default Programs in the Control panel, that while the Current Default is listed as PDF-XChange Viewer, the description is still listed as Chrome HTML Document. Also, in Windows Explorer
the Type details column lists Chrome HTML Document for PDF files. The correct icons do show in one single place that I have noticed, that being the open file dialog box (launched from any program, including Chrome!).

Obviously something that should be getting set here isn't. How can I fix this? I have tried restarting the PC to no effect.

Many thanks.

The image below shows a PDF on the desktop (to the left) that shows a preview thumbnail of the PDF but incorrectly shows it as opening with Chrome. It also shows a PDF file without preview in the Windows Explorer window that shows as a Chrome file type icon
and Chrome HTML Document in the Type column. To the bottom there is the Set Associations panel showing that the default program has indeed been set to PDFX-Change Viewer, but that the Description and icon are still set to Chrome.





NOTE: this does appear to be a windows problem rather than a Chrome problem as I just tried using the "Open with.." option to change the default to MS Edge, which worked correctly - everything changed over to Edge. But using the same method to chenge to
the viewer resulted in the same as outlined above, but with Edge instead of Chrome.

 

Unable to access print icon in File explorer in windows 10

In Windows 10, File explorer, under the share tab, the print icon, burn to disk,and email icon are all greyed out for pdf files. From looking at other posts, I have checked that the printer spool is running and have used both edge and chrome as my default
pdf viewer. I can access print options when I open a pdf in chrome and it will print fine, but I am actually trying to use the print to pdf function in file explorer to merge multiple pdf files. No matter what type of file I highlight, the print icon is greyed
out. Thanks

 

Hello Jim, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

It sounds like your girlfriend accidentally changed the default app for .pdf files to Chrome.

You can use an option in the tutorial below to set Adobe Reader as the default app to open .pdf files again though.

Default Apps - Choose in Windows 10

 

Thank you so much for that link! I will check it out!