Thank you kindly...you've done more for me than Adobe has, and it's their software!
Thank you...I do know about Project Gutenberg...I actually downloaded many books to an Android phone (the ADE software is for my PC) through sites related to PG (before I found I could get tons of free current books through a site called Book Bub (http://bookbub.com - go to the Free e-books section...they add about 4 or more every day...I even scored The DaVinci Code when it was free for a week!).
The reason for my needing the ADE reader, though, is because the books I want to read on my PC aren't novels. (I use my Android Kindle reader for novels.) I was hoping to check out books that aren't free and definitely aren't in the public domain. For instance, these are two of the books I was trying to "borrow" through Open Library...I'm sending you the links so that if you know of any software that does what ADE is SUPPOSED to, maybe I can find some way around this garbage:
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL3510744M/Knitting_in_Vogue
http://openlibrary.org/works/OL13654262W/Marcia_DeCoster%27s_beaded_op ulence
As I said, these are books that aren't in the public domain...I should be able to borrow them for 14 days, and they wouldn't be anything I would read on an Android, since I would tend to skip around and look at the instructions, rather than reading them as I would a novel. By using the "Borrow" link on these pages (and I'm a registered member of the site), I should be able to download a PDF (which is self-expiring), and so far, the only program I know that will read these particular PDFs is...ADE. 
These are books I would borrow from a library...if I had a library card. The quality of knitting and beading books in the public domain are laughable...the instructions are vague, poorly written and anything recovered from that long ago is usually not in good, readable shape, with pages missing and many completely illegible from the ravages of time. Since I have no library access to current crafting books, I was hoping this would be a good substitute.
I did also try the live chat link, but you're right, Adobe did nothing. They didn't know what the error meant, they had no workaround and they referred me here, which of course is ridiculous, considering they don't bother sending their tech experts to answer questions on their own products.
I'm not at all happy with Adobe. I was thinking that when my financial situation changes, I would buy the latest Photoshop, as the version I own is so ancient it isn't funny, but when the time comes I'll probably not go with an Adobe product when I can get something that's less expensive and comes from a company that provides support for its products.
Thank you again! 