Normally under a PDF there is a link to the file you can right-click on it and save link as to download it to your computer.  

Once you download it you can right-click on the downloaded file and choose Open With then Other... 

then choose Preview from the list, check always open with tick box then click Open.

That should mean you can open PDFs now. Otherwise, the error on your laptop can be complex to fix so you will need to bring it into helpdesk and we will fix it for you.