PHP Popen function disabled on my hosts web server

Re Edocman: Is 'popen' function still an absolute requirement for Edocman to work? My ISP's webserver has this function disabled. 

Also if I only require PDF indexer function rather than the full full Edocman extension, does that require 'popen' function and can I still buy that seperately?

Thanks.

Hi Bob,
Popen is necessary in case you want to use PDF Indexer function of Edocman. But it just for PDF files only, because if you want to index content of .doc or docx files, you won't need Popen library enabled.
Other parts of Edocman don't need Popen library for working.
Thanks
Dam