Local administrator could open the pdf in a new window without problem. User had admin rights but could only open a new window, the pdf would not load. On advice; set IE settings back to default and was able to make it work.

Word has been opening the maximized window starting a quarter of the way down the page making it unable to be moved up into the correct position. I closed Word, deleted the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\W ord\Data, and reopened Word. Worked properly. I presume it rebuilt the key with the default setting after it was unable to find the old key.