I had similar issues the past couple days. I was initially not able to change the default program to open PDFs. I tried doing 'open with' and setting a new default, and I tried changing the default in the windows 11 settings program. At some point I received a similar message to others where windows that an app default was reset.
Anyway, I did get the setting to take by doing the following:
- Close Edge and Adobe PDF reader (or whatever PDF reader you're trying to use).
- now set the default program
- confirm it actually changed the default program (windows settings->apps->default apps->.pdf file type
- If it did, enjoy being able to use a real PDF viewer like you're used to without jumping through additional hoops
We'll see if the settings stick around.