Was PDF-XChange Editor v11 silently pulled?

[Impress]

PDF-XChange Editor v11.0.0 was available for official download from https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/downloads for several days. But now it appears to be gone. No new posts on https://www.pdf-xchange.com/company/news-press-events explaining the status.

What's going on?

Was it silently pulled? Are you having server issues that are causing only the old downloads (v10.8.5.410) to be available again? Something else?

Please don't keep us in the dark!

[Impress]

Hello? What's going on? Why the radio silence?

If v11.0.0 got pulled, I think we deserve to know why and if we need to take any actions on systems that now have it installed.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Impress

Thank you for the patience, and I do apologize for the delay in a reply - it was a long weekend in our offices.
Those who are using V11 and have not experienced any of the issues below, should be safe to continue using the software without issue, there is no urgent need to remove it or roll back.
For those who have experienced any of the following issues, should completely uninstall the software (via the windows control panel - do not use a third party removal tool), then restart the device and reinstall V10.8.5 in the meantime (you can download this from our downloads page, or your account page directly)

These issues included items like:

• Some users finding that windows no longer respected it being set as a default app (I could not reproduce this one myself, but it seems to be related to recent windows changes).
• Some users finding their printers are not properly installed after the update
• Some users found the new file explorer problematic (missing places, lack of access to shared network drives or cloud services)
• In very rare cases, the license key may have not be carried over to the new file paths (We moved our files from ..\tracker software\.. to ..\PDF-XChange\.. paths). In these cases, reapplying the key should resolve the issue.

In practice, while it was a number of smaller items, the decision was made while the majority of the company was out for the long weekend and we did not have the time to write a formal notice. We do sincerely apologize for the lack of communication in this respect, the intent was for 11.0.1 to come out sooner than later, with fixes for all of these, and V11 was pulled as a containment decision, to prevent new cases, and reduce the support load in the meantime.

Kind regards,

[kosity]

Completely agree with the OP.

The first I knew of problems was when one of my support team said the license script doesn't work. A bit of troubleshooting found that the path to xcvault.exe has completely changed.

This change is exacerbated by the ridiculous licensing system generating a new key for any license modification. If I buy one or ten or whatever licenses, the new license needs to be updated across my entire fleet so that installations don't fail to activate randomly. Begrudgingly, I've made a script to do that for each of our clients that use PDF-XChange....but it doesn't work if suddenly xcvault.exe is in a new location

Then my team tells me the licenses aren't working - something about license consolidation. I go looking in the client's account and find "You purchased version 10.7.5.403, and the newest version your key qualifies for is 10.8.5.410"

Well, Action1 has already rolled out v11 to nearly the entire fleet, so this isn't good?!

Then I go to the front page of the PDF-XChange website and it clearly shows "New Release v11" but "Current version: 10.8.5.410"?!

Then I go into the forums and realise v11 has been a complete dumpsterfire.

THEN, my team tells me Defender ASR rules are blocking PDF-XChange because Outlook is spawning a child process. We've had to put a rule in to allow it, because it's currently a massive impact to client operations but rolling back to v10.8 would be an even bigger mess. (Not just because it's wasted time for all, but apparently, I can't even use a third-party tool to do this?!)

What an absolute shambolic mess.

And then this!

....while the majority of the company was out for the long weekend and we did not have the time to write a formal notice......V11 was pulled as a containment decision, to prevent new cases, and reduce the support load in the meantime.

V11.0.0, a major release with no revisions, was released before a long weekend? What, devs hit "Publish to Prod" on the way out the door?

And then it was pulled not because of the obviously significant impact to users, but to reduce the support load?

Abject failure of change management (no learnings from Crowdstrike?) after an evidently abject failure of testing, and then a tone deaf response on the actual impact of this dumpsterfire.

Time-consuming high-friction operation-impacting messes are why I've moved clients away from Adobe to PDF-XChange, but I am now very seriously questioning if that was the right move.

[margian]

I agree on all fronts with concerned and frustrated users in the forum.
PDF-XChange at this stage should be a mature and consolidated solution.
Thousands of end-users and companies rely on this product on a daily basis and anything impacting its functionalities, use-cases, logistics, and SDLC posture and processes should be supposed to minimize management overhead and engagement in activities like testing, measuring, troubleshooting, making videos of observations and documenting the diagnosing process.
People have other roles and responsibilities in their work and personal life.
They pay a subscription fee that should be also supposed to include a baseline of quality checking before each release is handed over to the public.
And I'd say, PXE staff has still a lot to process and improve on the communication side of things when it comes to managing major and minor crises or incidents.
Hush-Hush and hiding key rollback and mitigation instructions into a several interactions deep forum post is also a further testimony that there is a lot to be desired still in the customer's experience and support domain.
Guys, please get your sh... things together and start leveraging a bit of structure and general customer service to your delivery posture.

[Sean - PDF-XChange]

Hi kosity/margian,

Thank you for providing your detailed feedback here - even when that feedback comes from a place of understandable frustration. We recognize that many of you rely on PDF-XChange as a business-critical tool integrated into deployment systems, activation workflows, endpoint management, and day-to-day operations across large environments, and how difficult and frustrating complicated issues such as those found with the transition to V11 can be as a result.

Reading through the concerns raised, it is clear that the impact extends beyond the individual bugs that we have identified in the new build. Unexpected changes such as modified paths, licensing workflow complications, deployment issues, security rule interactions, and the confusion surrounding release visibility created additional work and uncertainty for administrators and support teams. We understand that these kinds of disruptions carry a real operational cost, and for many of you that cost is measured in lost time, interrupted workflows, and additional support burden - and we are very sorry that this has happened.

We also acknowledge the concerns regarding communication. While our intention in pulling V11 was to limit further impact while we investigated and addressed reported issues, we understand that our communication around that decision did not meet expectations. Delayed messaging and fragmented guidance can leave users feeling as though they are discovering important information through forum threads rather than through clear and proactive channels, and that is a fair criticism that we will rectify moving forwards.

We take this feedback very seriously. We recognize our errors here, and we will improve the processes, communication, and release practices involved from now on. We are actively reviewing both the technical issues and the broader concerns around change management and communication, so that future releases can be delivered with utmost stability, predictability, and transparency - as they almost always have been in the past. Customer satisfaction is a very high priority for PDF-XChange, and we pride ourselves on providing the best user experience and support that we can offer.

We apologize for the disruption and frustration that this release has caused, and we are working on resolving these issues as quickly as we can. Thank you again for your feedback and patience.

- The PDF-XChange Team

[ScottW]

Completely agree with the OP.

The first I knew of problems was when one of my support team said the license script doesn't work. A bit of troubleshooting found that the path to xcvault.exe has completely changed.

This change is exacerbated by the ridiculous licensing system generating a new key for any license modification. If I buy one or ten or whatever licenses, the new license needs to be updated across my entire fleet so that installations don't fail to activate randomly. Begrudgingly, I've made a script to do that for each of our clients that use PDF-XChange....but it doesn't work if suddenly xcvault.exe is in a new location

Then my team tells me the licenses aren't working - something about license consolidation. I go looking in the client's account and find "You purchased version 10.7.5.403, and the newest version your key qualifies for is 10.8.5.410"

Well, Action1 has already rolled out v11 to nearly the entire fleet, so this isn't good?!

Then I go to the front page of the PDF-XChange website and it clearly shows "New Release v11" but "Current version: 10.8.5.410"?!

Then I go into the forums and realise v11 has been a complete dumpsterfire.

THEN, my team tells me Defender ASR rules are blocking PDF-XChange because Outlook is spawning a child process. We've had to put a rule in to allow it, because it's currently a massive impact to client operations but rolling back to v10.8 would be an even bigger mess. (Not just because it's wasted time for all, but apparently, I can't even use a third-party tool to do this?!)

What an absolute shambolic mess.

And then this!

....while the majority of the company was out for the long weekend and we did not have the time to write a formal notice......V11 was pulled as a containment decision, to prevent new cases, and reduce the support load in the meantime.

V11.0.0, a major release with no revisions, was released before a long weekend? What, devs hit "Publish to Prod" on the way out the door?

And then it was pulled not because of the obviously significant impact to users, but to reduce the support load?

Abject failure of change management (no learnings from Crowdstrike?) after an evidently abject failure of testing, and then a tone deaf response on the actual impact of this dumpsterfire.

Time-consuming high-friction operation-impacting messes are why I've moved clients away from Adobe to PDF-XChange, but I am now very seriously questioning if that was the right move.

Very similar scenario here. Action1 has already rolled the update to my whole fleet. Same Defender ASR issues, and I also have a couple of users with the HtmlToPDF error when previewing files mentioned in another thread.

Sub optimal.

[Sean - PDF-XChange]

Hi Scott,

Again, we're very sorry to have caused you this disruption and frustration. We are working hard on resolving the issues, and will do our utmost to ensure that such issues do not occur again.

Kind regards,

[dsobrero]

Completely agree with the OP.

The first I knew of problems was when one of my support team said the license script doesn't work. A bit of troubleshooting found that the path to xcvault.exe has completely changed.

This change is exacerbated by the ridiculous licensing system generating a new key for any license modification. If I buy one or ten or whatever licenses, the new license needs to be updated across my entire fleet so that installations don't fail to activate randomly. Begrudgingly, I've made a script to do that for each of our clients that use PDF-XChange....but it doesn't work if suddenly xcvault.exe is in a new location

Then my team tells me the licenses aren't working - something about license consolidation. I go looking in the client's account and find "You purchased version 10.7.5.403, and the newest version your key qualifies for is 10.8.5.410"

Well, Action1 has already rolled out v11 to nearly the entire fleet, so this isn't good?!

Then I go to the front page of the PDF-XChange website and it clearly shows "New Release v11" but "Current version: 10.8.5.410"?!

Then I go into the forums and realise v11 has been a complete dumpsterfire.

THEN, my team tells me Defender ASR rules are blocking PDF-XChange because Outlook is spawning a child process. We've had to put a rule in to allow it, because it's currently a massive impact to client operations but rolling back to v10.8 would be an even bigger mess. (Not just because it's wasted time for all, but apparently, I can't even use a third-party tool to do this?!)

What an absolute shambolic mess.

And then this!

....while the majority of the company was out for the long weekend and we did not have the time to write a formal notice......V11 was pulled as a containment decision, to prevent new cases, and reduce the support load in the meantime.

V11.0.0, a major release with no revisions, was released before a long weekend? What, devs hit "Publish to Prod" on the way out the door?

And then it was pulled not because of the obviously significant impact to users, but to reduce the support load?

Abject failure of change management (no learnings from Crowdstrike?) after an evidently abject failure of testing, and then a tone deaf response on the actual impact of this dumpsterfire.

Time-consuming high-friction operation-impacting messes are why I've moved clients away from Adobe to PDF-XChange, but I am now very seriously questioning if that was the right move.

kosity, i'm having a similar problem. i have 7500> licenses for my org and i'm using intune to deploy the lic but haven't having some issues with getting the Licenses to activate correctly. would it be possible to share your script "blocking out any keys" that may help the rest of us trying to deploy? i would have msg you directly but this forum doesn't appear to have that feature.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi, dsobrero

11.0.1 will be available soon. Once we have corrected what was not right on 11.0.0 The activation of 11.0.0 issue is likely due to a bug.

There isn't a script to "fix" this, the fix, is 11.0.1 next week.

Did you already push 11.0..0 to all 7500 end points?

[dsobrero]

When will v11 be re-released i believe their was a statement that it would be this week?

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, dsobrero

So far there has been no official statement/promise of the release date. We had hoped it would be soon enough to release this week, but from the looks of it, the earliest i could predict it is this coming Wednesday (though it is more likely to be closer to the next week)

Kind regards,

[FDP]

I used v11 for about a minute today. I found it terrible.

I didn't notice any of the issues listed in the post about this, but it was slow to open moderately-sized PDF, rendering first the top half, then the bottom. These are files that v10 opens in an instant.

I'm a fan of PDF Xchange Editor - as I expect we all are - and I'd like to urge Tracker Software not to drop the quality of their program for the sake of industry trends. Something has made v11 a much worse experience than v10 and it needs to be addressed. I'm disappointed that v11 was developed despite being a downgrade, and I hope the firm is able to course-correct. Somehow, v11 passed all the internal stagegates.

In my opinion rendering quality and rendering speed are two of the most important aspects of a PDF viewer, and I think it will be important for PDF Xchange Editor to maintain its market position here - even if it means no AI editing suggestions just yet.

In my opinion the only enhancement v10 needs is a UI overhaul. I no longer recommend it to people because their reactions to the UI is always the same - even though you can turn it all off. It needs a slim toolbar (like Acrobat , not a ribbon with 500 commands packed in.

Hope I didn't sound too critical. It's intended to be constructive.

[quickcad]

Maybe Indians involved in the version 11.It is too bad.

[Impress]

Maybe [redacted by Impress] involved in the version 11.It is too bad.

Your racism is not welcome here or anywhere else.