Adobe PDF Printer not showing -- no fix found yet

The Adobe PDF printer is no longer showing on a system in the office. It's running Windows 7 Professional x64. The Adobe Acrobat version is Pro X.
I have tried litereally everything I could find here in the forums and elsewhere, including uninstall, clean-up (using the Adobe tool), reinstall, maually printer install attempts (failed), manual removal of all printer ports relating to Adobe PDF documents etc. Nothing worked.
Adobe Acrobat itself is working perfectly fine, but the PDF printer is not showing anywhere, or working. I had to install an alternative for now (PDF Creator), but obviously that's not an acceptable solution. The issue started, I believe, after some tax software package was installed that had its own PDF printer. The software has since been removed, and all troubleshooting has taken place after.
System restore is also no option, since it doesn't go as far back.
If anyone has any further suggestions, it would be very much appreciated. I am an IT professional, I'm comfortable with registry rediting or similar if that is what it takes, I'd just like to find a fix, and so far I've exhausted everything I could find (including Experts Exchange).

Try this process. If you get any errors then screenshot them and post them back to the forum.
Try this to add Adobe PDF printer manually on Windows 7.
If windows 7 is Enterprise or better edition: (Admin rights required)
Start>search for printmanagement.msc and open the print management module
Expand the print server and expand the computer name to see availbale printers, drivers and printer ports.
- from printers ensure there's no Adobe PDF printer, if there is delete it
- go to ports and delete the PDF ports (the ones ending in *.pdf)
- go to drivers and delete the PDF converter.
Take note if any errors occur, but continue with the following steps regardless.
If on windows 7 home edition, just goto start>Devices and Printers and ensure PDF pritner is not listed.
Then open the registry (if any erors deleting these keys happen, see below)
1: go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers
delete any adobe PDF printer subkey present
2: go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors
delete the PDF port monitor if present
3: go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
again delete and pdf printer subkey
If any erros occur, you need to set the owner of the key to the currently logged in admin user, then ensure that user has full control.
Do this by right-click the key and selecting permissions, clicking on advanced, then the owner tab.
Once all that has been done, open a command line as administrator.
Copy and paste the following commands in order
1: net stop spooler
2: rundll32.exe setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection AdobePDFPortMonitor 128 C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 10.0\Acrobat\Xtras\AdobePDF\AdobePDF.inf
3: net start spooler
4:rundll32.exe printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /if /b "Adobe PDF" /f "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 10.0\Acrobat\Xtras\AdobePDF\AdobePDF.inf" /r "Documents\*.pdf" /m "Adobe PDF Converter"
That should set back the pdf printer.

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Adobe PDF Toolbar Not Showing In Firefox

I installed CS5 Master Collection in Windows 7 64 and Adobe PDF toolbar installed automatically in IE8 but not in Firefox latest version. Would somebody please tell me what to do to install in Firefox?
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Thank you for all the information. I'll upgrade to Acrobat X.
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 11:45:21 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Adobe PDF Toolbar Not Showing In Firefox
Adobe Reader if always free. Acrobat requires a purchase.
Also Acrobat X has different UI, there is usually a floating toolbar that can be used to open the full toolbar.
>

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I have installed, repaired, uninstalled and re-installed Acrobat Pro 9.5.5 on a newly formatted SSD with Windows 7, 64 bit on my desktop machine. The program was installed from Acrobat Pro 9.0.0 and updated within the program. I have the program also installed on my laptop, and the Adobe PDF Printer driver is working properly on my laptop.
On my desktop with the newly formatted SSD, the Adobe PDF printer driver is not working. Note that I am using the printer driver, and not any pdf creation techniques within MS Office or other programs.
When I go to the Adobe PDF printing preferences on my desktop, I only get a generic, two tab window open. When I print a file to this printer on my desktop machine, I do not get a window opening that asks where to create the pdf or what to name it, and I never see any files created. In MS Word, the Create PDF option under the Acrobat tab works and opens a dialog to ask the name and location to save, and then opens a PDF Maker progress window and properly creates the file. I can also save a file as an .eps or .ps file and use Distiller to create the pdf. However I cannot get the Adobe PDF printer driver in my Devices and Printers to work properly, although it works just fine on my laptop with the same program (Pro 9.5.5) and same Windows version (7, 64 bit).
Repairing, uninstalling and re-installing does not solve the problem. Acrotray.exe *32 process is running. Any ideas on why this won't run properly on my desktop, but will run on a similarly configured laptop?
On my laptop, I get a full, (7) tabl menu with all the normal options:

I found this answer from Deepak Chauhan on another forum, and it solved this problem!
Try this to add Adobe PDF printer manually on Windows 7, and Windows Vista.
If windows 7 is Enterprise or better edition: (Admin rights required)
Start>search for printmanagement.msc and open the print management module
Expand the print server and expand the computer name to see availbale printers, drivers and printer ports.
- from printers ensure there's no Adobe PDF printer, if there is delete it
- go to ports and delete the PDF ports (the ones ending in *.pdf)
- go to drivers and delete the PDF converter.
Take note if any errors occur, but continue with the following steps regardless.
If on windows 7 home edition, just goto start>Devices and Printers and ensure PDF pritner is not listed.
Then open the registry (if any erors deleting these keys happen, see below)
1: go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers
delete any adobe PDF printer subkey present
2: go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors
delee the PDF port monitor if present
3: go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
again delete and pdf printer subkey
If any erros occur, you need to set the owner of the key to the currently logged in admin user, then ensure that user has full control.
Do this by right-click the key and selecting permissions, clicking on advanced, then the owner tab.
Once you've all that has been done, open a command line as administrator.
Copy and pate the following commands in order
1: net stop spooler
2: rundll32.exe setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection AdobePDFPortMonitor 128 C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Xtras\AdobePDF\AdobePDF.inf
3: net start spooler
4:rundll32.exe printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /if /b "Adobe PDF" /f "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Xtras\AdobePDF\AdobePDF.inf" /r "Documents\*.pdf" /m "Adobe PDF Converter"
That should set back the pdf printer.
This seemed to provide the link that provided the Adobe PDF Settings tab to the Adobe PDF Printing Preferences that was missing!

Adobe PDF Printer not working in Illustrator since 9.3.2 update.

Greetings all,
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I've tried several restarts and have also removed the printer and run the Repair Acrobat Installation from the Help menu of Acrobat to reinstall the printer, but problem remains.
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No error messages are given and the Illustrator print jobs are listed as Completed in the printer job list but no files are created.
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Many thanks,
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I've never liked the Save As PDF option in Illustrator. Though the quality is excellent, in my experience it creates bloated PDFs that are often too big to email.
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The reason for the size increase is obvious when the big pdf is opened in Illustrator: all the bits and pieces outside the artboard and on hidden layers are all preserved. In reality, it's just the same as the original Illustrator file seeing as Illustrator's native AI format is pretty much a pdf in all but name only.
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Hi,
Technically acrobat 7 not not designed for windows 7 OS. You can try to install the pdf printer manually but it's not guaranteed :
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Sorry for the misunderstanding. Perhaps I could put it more clearly: "Since you have upgraded Windows, it is time to also upgrade Acrobat". The only version currently sold is XI (11).
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Good Afternoon,
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Each report has an table - pasted from Excel 2007 "as a picture - when printed". The reports have a ton of other jpg pictures.
After creation, when I open the PDF, some of the tables appear to have become transparent. Where the picture used to be is a selection box, as if there were a picture there, but it's merely blank. All of the photos, frames, and Word-based tables show up. Some of the pasted-from-Excel tables also show up, not these ones.
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I have two users who have Acrobat X Pro version 10.1.4 that are experiencing the same things. First, one person just changed laptops and the new one has a fresh Windows 7 Enterprise X64 image and new installation of Adobe Acrobat X Pro. When he used the pdf printer for the first time(after opening the program and accepting the license agreement) he was in MS Excel '07 and chose file>print>Adobe PDF and then the progress bar came up and then showed not responding. After he did this a couple of times with me standing there I noticed that the save dialog box was opening in the background because I could see the icon blinking on the taskbar. He said that his old computer never did this and that it would always open up and ask where to save the file and never show 'not responding' on the progress bar. The other person having the same issue is running the same version but she has had the program installed on her machine for a few months and an older version on before that.
Is there a way to make the dialog box show as soon as you print to the Adobe PDF printer? What is causing this? Is there another way to create a pdf from MS Office like the add-on?

In installation process of Acrobat Professional 7 , its showing that Adobe Pdf printer is not Installed...need help to install the software completely

In installation process of Acrobat Professional 7 , its showing that Adobe Pdf printer is not Installed...need help to install the software completely

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