Adobe PDF Printer not working as print driver; 9.5.5 (pro) with Windows 7, 64 bit

Question

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:

Answer 1

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!