The “External Windows Handler” is a plug-in installed in the default Adobe Acrobat setup (highlighted below, in Reader 7.0 default plug-in screenshot) and required when a PDF is opened in the window of another application, such as IE or content management apps. Should one of those external applications crash with a PDF open it can corrupt any Acrobat plug-ins in use at the time of the crash. The next time an external Acrobat window is opened by another application the error “Could Not Find External Window Handler” will appear.

Common with the old versions 4.x and 5.x of Acrobat, this message is increasingly less-common with the better-coded and more stable Acrobat versions 6.x and 7.x. Nonetheless, the fix is a simple reinstallation of the Adobe Acrobat application. Unless a newer version Acrobat is being installed it isn’t necessary to uninstall the Acrobat software with the missing plug-in prior to the reinstallation.

(Click to enlarge:)

4 Responses to “Fixing Adobe Acrobat Error “Could Not Find External Window Handler””

1. donna, on June 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm, said:
   

   i have reinstalled adobe reader 6 more than once to fix this problem but it is still doing it.

2. Brett, on August 17th, 2007 at 7:07 am, said:
   

   I Concur. Acrobat 6.0 is a hug problem for us. We have reinstalled but this continues to happen!!

3. den, on January 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm, said:
   

   Could not find Acrobat External Window Handler.

   I opened add/remove programs
   Highlight Adobe
   click on left side:
   Set Program Access and Defaults
   Click on: Custom
   click on right side: & expand down arrow
   Scroll to bottom:
   Choose a default virtual machine for Java:
   check box: Enable access to this program
   …click OK
   On my PC, adobe once again, opens from Google Search *.pdf

4. Sw, on February 12th, 2008 at 8:05 pm, said:
   

   Adobe Acrobat Plug In - Could Not Find Acrobat External Window it is the same issue, year after year, release after release. What is the actual cause of this issue? What is the root reason it happens? The fixes can be performed easily enough and they work, but in my mind should never have to happen in the first place. Our support center continues year after year to log calls on this issue. That is a lot of time effort and money. What is preventing Adobe from resolving this issue after all these years?

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