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Oracle Netscpe 4.7x PDF Report problem

The problem is described as such:
The Corporate Information Systems Oracle interface accessible through Netscape 4.x has the ability to generate reports in PDF format. However, recent versions of the Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Professional do not support Netscape 4.x, causing the browser to freeze when Acrobat is loaded as a plugin.

The fix is the following:
1. Launch Netscape Navigator and in the address bar type 'about:plugins'

2. Search for 'pdf' - you should find one entry listing a PDF reader plugin. The plugin file name is probably 'nppdf32.dll'.

3. Take note of the hard drive location of the dll file above. It is usually in C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Programs\Plugins folder, but the location can vary.

4. Navigate to that location on your hard drive.

5. Rename the dll file to prevent Netscape from locating it. I suggest nppdf32.dll.bak.

6. Restart Netscape and again type 'about:plugins'. There should not longer be a plugin registered for reading PDFs.

7. Navigate to the Oracle system and try the PDF report again. It should now either:

  a) Automatically download to a temporary directory and open with acroread.exe  

or  

b) Complain it doesn't know what to do with this file - you can either register acroread.exe as the file handler or simply save it to disk, then open it manually.    

It is uncertain whether or not this fix will have to be repeated if Adobe Reader or Acrobat is reinstalled or upgraded, but I don't think so – I believe that 'nppdf32.dll' simply points to the system-wide default Adobe PDF reader, and by unregistering it as a plugin you have effectively disabled it unless you install a version intended to work with NS4, such as Acrobat 5.