---
title: "Whenever I try to open a PDF in ARMS, I get an error message saying, \"Can't open this file, open file with another program\""
description: "Whenever I try to open a PDF in ARMS, I get an error message saying, \"Can't open this file, open file with another program\""
---

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# Whenever I try to open a PDF in ARMS, I get an error message saying, "Can't open this file, open file with another program"

There are a few common causes that can prevent ARMS from properly displaying PDFs without downloading. After each step is made, please check the PDFs in ARMS and see if you can open them.

1. Is Adobe PDF Viewer set as the default program to view PDFs?

You can check by going to Control Panel \>\> Default Programs \>\> Set Associations.

PDFs are not set to be opened by Adobe modify them to set Adobe as the default program

 

 

![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/43379316182/original/CiYi_PM_eFPI2bUOjwAjNinOjH9eqXmvrQ.png?1671012208)

 

![Graphical user interface, text, application

Description automatically generated](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/43379316183/original/6kVaw6oXTPpds_tYFRD7R6AAHS6UEjo5Qg.png?1671012208)

 

 

![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/43379316186/original/Vd24q_oldcz0sahFzYby7HGOaYyElGFIJw.png?1671012209)

![Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/43379316188/original/ZTV-5AlSlcdF5jF6pejLItA8E6agDWGf7Q.png?1671012209)

Note: If you are on Windows 10 you can also go to Settings\>\>Apps\>\>Default Apps\>\>Choose Default apps by file type

2\. Do you have the latest version of Adobe PDF?  
 If you do not have the latest version, try uninstalling the old version and downloading the newest version. NOTE: If you have a paid version of Adobe PDF, you will need the installation key before you will be able to reinstall.

3\. Check for updates to Internet Explorer (IE). The ARMS clients utilize the Adobe plug-in found in IE to display the PDFs.

If the above steps did not work, then you can try this:

Step 1: Open a file browser and navigate to this directory, C:\\ProgramData\\End2End 

Step 2: Copy the Media Store folder to another part of the computer for resilience, and then delete the folder from the original directory.

![Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.freshdesk.com/data/helpdesk/attachments/production/43379316180/original/BBuugW5CHHtmbylo089fil8NLnd54HMCNw.png?1671012208)

 

Now run ARMS again and log in to the system and you will be able to open the PDF.

 

 

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