Cyber Drop

This trick will hold good for any version of the Acrobat Reader. *nix users excuse me :)

Here's how to do it:

Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader (replace the C: if you installed the Adobe Acrobat reader on some other drive). The path would be like C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader if it's version 9.

Inside the Reader folder, you will find a lot of folders. What we concerned about are the two folders - Plus-ins and Optional.
Inside Plug-ins folder, you will find hell a lot of plug-ins which you really won't ever be using at all. For example,

• Accessibility.api - Acrobat Accessibility
• Annots.api - Comments
• AcroForm.api - Forms
• MakeAccessible.api - MakeAccessible
• Spelling.api - Spelling
• soap.api - soap
• Sendmail.api - Send Mail
• reflow.api - Reflow
• LegalPDF.api - Legal PDF
• DigSig.api - Digital Signature
• Multimedia.api - Multimedia
• PPKLite.api - PPKLite
• Updater.api - Updater
• eBook.api - Adobe DRM
• PDDom.api - PDCom
• SaveAsRTF.api - Save as RTF
• Checkers.api - Checkers

You can see these options via the menu options Help -> Adobe Help Plug-ins as shown below:











Now, as the final step, cut all the unneeded plug-ins from the Plug-ins folder and paste them to the Optional folder. You're done!

Try opening your Acrobat Reader now to experience it's performance :)

PS: For the ones using Acrobat Reader 9.0, please don't bother CUT-ting and PASTING the contents of plug_ins3d folder to Optional. I did try that, it did really not have much notable difference in the performance. Besides, this plus_ins3d folder seems only to have .x3d format files which mean Extensible 3D. X3D is actually a file format specification with requirements on how that file is to be displayed. It will be the ISO standard for 3D graphics. So, even if you cut and paste the contents of plug_ins3d folder to Optional, it will not have any impact.