Opening PDF Using subprocess.Popen Failing

[Naftali]

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 1:25:12 PM UTC-4, Naftali wrote:
> It actually doesn't fail but it 'cannot open in protected mode' (see here http://blogs.adobe.com/dmcmahon/2012/07/27/adobe-reader-cannot-open-protected-mode-due-to-a-problem-with-your-system-configuration/)
> 
> I am using subprocess.Popen("AcroRe32.exe /n <file.pdf>") which is the actuall adobe reader command I'd issue on the command line to open the pdf (the /n option opens it the file in a new instance of reader).
> 
> Now, when I issue the command straight from powershell, the pdf opens no problem, but when I open in my script (whether a .py or py2exe) I get the pop up complaining that the PDF cannot be opened in 'protected mode.' One of the options is to open it anyways, which works. 
> 
> Looking into it (see the link in the first paragraph) my best guess is that it's due to something like "JS-invoked processes: Launching a process through JavaScript is not allowed with Protected Mode enabled." 
> 
> But my naive understanding was that when I give Popen instruction, the command is handed off to windows and the called program is unaware of how it got called, so my thinking is that either that is incorrect or windows somehow 'cooperates' with reader to figure things out. 
> 
> I am looking for *any* insight as to how to deal with this, and the 'turn off protected mode" option wont work for me. 
> 
> Here is my code,
> 
> outputname = " unlocked.pdf"
> 
> commandstr = "qpdf --decrypt " + sys.argv[1] + outputname
> os.system(commandstr)
> 
> new_command_str = "AcroRd32.exe /n" + outputname
> subprocess.Popen(new_command_str)
> 
> sys.exit(0)

Well a happy if not completely satisfying ending. So alternative readers worked ok, but IT was ok with turning off protective mode and also disabling javascript in adobe reader, considering the relative benign provenance of the pdf's coming into the system (though I am curious whether or not disabling java script is actually *more* secure than a sandbox, i.e. can a system be harmed by rendering a pdf with no java script?