Sporty's Chart Viewer and Adobe Reader 7
I've been using Sporty's Chart Viewer for a good while now (and highly recommend it for easy currency of approach plates). However, I ran into a problem with it after upgrading Adobe Reader to version 7: Chart Viewer stopped working with an error message:
"Failed to load control 'Pdf' from pdf.ocx. Your version of pf.ocx may be outdated. Make sure you are using the version of the control that was provided with your application."
That wasn't very nice - especially considering Sporty's requires you to have Adobe Reader installed prior to using the Chart Viewer and they don't specify a version for use.
Not to fear, though. A quick call to a very helpful lady at the Sporty's Customer Service desk gave me the steps necessary to update the app to use Reader 7 (although this does not fix "run from DVD" installations):
- Insert the Chart Viewer DVD in the drive.
- Use Windows Explorer to view the contents of the DVD.
- Locate and launch "update.exe"
- Click the button labeled "Click here to update".
This is a one-time process (meaning you don't have to do this each time you get a new DVD).
On the one hand, it's good they recognized there was an issue and devised an easy fix for it. However, it would have been far better to install this fix automatically. Still, I'm satisfied with the product.
UPDATE: 17 Jan 2006
The 19 Jan 2006 release of Chart Viewer has the following banner on their installer:
Sporty's Chart Viewer is now compatible with Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7.
- If Acrobat Reader version 6 is currently installed and a previous installation of Sporty's Chart Viewer exists, the software will continue to function as normal.
- All new installations require Acrobat Reader 7. Visit www.adobe.com for a free download.
At least the compatibility issue has been addressed. Still makes me wonder what they mean by their first bullet...