No TITLEs displayed in Detail view in Windows Explorer

Question

The following pertains to Windows 7 Professional 64-bit vs. Windows XP Professional 32-bit.
In Windows Explorer, when viewing the file list in 'detail' view, you can also add the 'title' attribute for display by right-clicking the attribute bar above the file list.  However, in Windows 7, no titles are displayed for PDF files that have this
information which were displayed under WinXP.  Also, if the file properties are displayed, the PDF tab is gone.
I cannot find any info on how to re-enable this feature.  If XP-style PDF title attributes have been removed or disabled in Windows 7 Explorer, it is a MAJOR omission for our corporation.  We have a massive collection of corporate
and 3rd party PDF documents where interdocument links will not work if the filename is changed.  The TITLE attribute in detail view is used to display the document title, not the filename.  If any other view is used, e.g. icon view, the bubble
popup displays the title in WinXP, but this again doesn't work in Win7.  Without the title attribute working as it does in XP, we may have to forego moving from XP to Windows 7 on our desktops (we're skipping Vista, of course), and find an alternate
desktop OS (Linux?) that still supports this feature.
For example, every IBM software/hardware PDF manual has a cryptic filename which does not reflect anything about the title of the manual.  These filenames support inter-manual links, so renaming the PDF manuals to reflect the title is absolutely
not an option.  However, the PDF attributes of the file do contain the title, and these were visible under both Properties (the PDF tab), and the TITLE column in Detail view under WinXP.  However, both of these features are gone in Windows 7,
and to say it's a PITA is a gross understatement.
We want (need) this feature back in Windows 7.  I'd call it a show-stopper in moving to Windows 7 if this isn't fixed, and soon!
Btw, Microsoft, we have over 45,000 desktops currently running WinXP, plus 100's of Win2003/Win2008 servers in our corp.  Are you listening?

Answer 1

Here's what seems to be going on.
As part of the Adobe Reader download, Adobe provides a shell extension called pdfshell.dll.  On 32-bit Windows XP, you'll find it in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX folder.  On 64-bit Windows 7, you'll find it in the C:\Program
Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX folder.  But, on either system, it's a 32-bit shell extension.  On 64-bit Windows 7, Windows Explorer will only run as a 64-bit program.  According to numerous web forum posters, this was a change
between the last "beta" and the "RC" version of 64-bit Windows 7.  There is a 32-bit version of Windows Explorer in the C:\Windows\SysWOW64 folder, but if you try to run it you get another instance of 64-bit Explorer.  The (first)
problem is that 64-bit Windows Explorer won't load a 32-bit shell extension.
You can see the 32-bit pdfshell.dll "working" on 64-bit Windows 7 in the File Open dialog of any 32-bit application (such as Adobe Reader).  To see this, first open an Explorer window and navigate to a folder that has some PDF files like your
IBM manual.  Right click on the file and choose Properties.  Look at the tabs in the dialog and note that there is no PDF tab.  Now, OK out of the Properties dialog and double-click on the same file to open it in Adobe Reader.  Now press
Ctrl-O or choose File Open to get the File Open dialog.  Navigate to the same folder, right click on the same file and choose Properties.  Look at the tabs and see that you now have the PDF tab that was missing in Explorer.  In that tab, you
can see the Title that pdfshell.dll has pulled from the file.  This works because 32-bit Adobe Reader has loaded a 32-bit common file dialog which *will* load a 32-bit shell extension.
But you're not out of the woods yet.  The common file dialog has many of the features of Explorer, and you can select Details view and right-click on the column headers to choose to show a Title column.  This will show Titles for several document
types, but not for PDF files.  This isn't a 64-bit versus 32-bit issues, it's a Windows XP versus Vista and later issue.  What Adobe implemented in pdfshell.dll is an ActiveX interface called IColumnProvider, and Microsoft dropped support for this
interface in Windows Vista (replacing it with something called the Property System).  You can glance at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776831%28VS.85%29.aspx and just read the first line after the page header:  "[This feature is supported
only under Windows XP or earlier. ]".  So, the PDF Title column feature didn't go away with 64-bit Windows 7, it went away with 32-bit Windows Vista.
The best solution to this problem would be for Adobe to update pdfshell.dll to provide the Property System interface that Vista and Windows 7 require.  See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776859%28v=VS.85%29.aspx if you care for the details. 
Then Adobe should release 32-bit and 64-bit versions of pdfshell.dll implementing the new interface, and we'd get both the PDF tab and Explorer columns like Title for PDF files in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 (and Vista).
Alternatively, some enterprising developer could presumably write a shim that would present the Property System interface on its upper side (callable by Explorer) and the IColumnProvider interface on its lower side (capable of calling existing versions of
pdfshell.dll).  It would need to deal with interfacing between 64-bit Explorer and a 32-bit pdfshell.dll ... I assume that this is possible somehow, but I don't know.
A kludge that might be (barely?) usable would be to use Windows XP Mode to run a 32-bit Windows XP Explorer and use that to navigate using the PDF Titles and possibly launch them.  Perhaps you could come up with a way to make Windows XP Mode's Explorer
launch Adobe Reader in the host 64-bit Windows 7 OS.
A third-party solution might be xplorer^2 (http://www.zabkat.com/index.htm) which claims to support the interface that Microsoft dropped in Vista (http://www.zabkat.com/blog/07Feb10-column-handlers-revived.htm).  I know nothing about this program, I
just found it while Googling for "column handler".  It says that it has a 21 day trial, is available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions and costs $29.95 (presumably US dollars).  There is a "lite" version that is free for non-commercial
use ... all of this info is just repeated from their web pages, I have no connection to the company and only know what I read ... I haven't tried it.
It's worth noting that life isn't perfect with pdfshell.dll and 32-bit Windows XP either, depending on your PDF files.  Some documents don't have Titles (depending, partly, on what software produced them).  Some have Titles long enough that they
won't display in an Explorer column (though they show up truncated on the status line and un-truncated in a tooltip).  I have a file called "GEARaspi Security Information.pdf" (http://www.gearsoftware.com/support/GEARAspi%20Security%20Information.pdf)
that has no Title, created by OpenOffice.org 2.4 according to its PDF tab.  I have another called "319124.pdf" (http://www.intel.com/assets/pdf/whitepaper/319124.pdf) which has the rather wordy title "Intel®  Extreme Memory Profile
(Intel® XMP) supporting Intel® X48 Express Chipset with DDR3 White Paper".  Despite having a Title, no Title is displayed in a Title column in Windows Explorer in 32-bit Windows XP, though a truncated version appears in the status bar and
the tooltip gets the whole thing, wrapping to two lines to do it.  Intel's file was produced with Acrobat PDFMaker 7.0 for Word according to its PDF tab.
This post is based on what I could figure out, I hope it's helpful (if discouraging ... you won't fix this with a registry hack).