Internet Explorer ONLY passes parameters to Adobe Reader plugin for hosted files, not local

Question

WORKS:
<embed src="http://host.com/test.pdf#page=5"/>
FAILS:
<embed src="test.pdf#page=5"/>
Both code snippets above work when the HTML file is hosted (IIS / Apache).  My web-app needs to be able to run from a USB memory stick and work with IE9.  The #page param is required for a core feature of the app.
Parameters after the # are passed correctly to the Adobe Reader plugin in Firefox for offline files, eg: file:///C:/test.htm.  The documentation only describes hosted examples: http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_open_parameters.pdf
I have tried the <object> route as well with similar results, eg: http://pdfobject.com/
I have burned over 8 hours looking for a solution. I have tried any logical settings in Adobe Reader X, and with the security zones in IE.  I am not very familiar with IE security zones, but I suspect it could be related to my issue.  I can specify the end-user change any browser or plugin settings as an acceptable solution.

Answer 1

I am developing a hybrid web-application that needs to work both offline (entire website) and in a hosted environment.  A key part of the product is displaying PDF's with a dynamic index outside of the PDF. This allows us to use PDF's collected from hundreds of contractors, clients and manufacturers and combine them into one searchable product with a consistent interface.  I can specify product requirements including IE browser settings, installed plug-ins etc. I am not trying to cater to a wide audience such as everyone online, but a specific one that is spending $5k-30k for a custom resource.
I expect the limiation is due to a wide cast net regarding security.  I tried every setting in IE and essentially fully disabling all security options did not resolve it.
I found a solution, by accessing the ActiveX object directly you can use the exposed classes described here: http://livedocs.adobe.com/acrobat_sdk/9.1/Acrobat9_1_HTMLHelp/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/w whelp.htm?context=Acrobat9_HTMLHelp&file=IAC_API_OLE_Objects.103.167.html
Javascript:
var pdfO = document.getElementById('pdfObj');
pdfO.setCurrentPage(pageNumber);
HTML:
<OBJECT id ="pdfObj" data="test.pdf" TYPE="application/pdf">
    <a href="test.pdf">Fall-back code</a>
</OBJECT>
This actually works much faster as well, since the plugin doesn't need to be re-drawn in the DOM