Another stupid IT question

[Blackbird]

A few days ago, I received some video and picture editing software (ULead Video Editor 11 Plus) on CD from our son in the UK. I attempted to load it on our desktop computer and part way through the installation process, got the good old “fatal error” message. I repeated the process twice more with the same result. It does create a folder and downloads stuff, but it’s clearly incomplete. I get the same result whether I log on as administrator or any other account.

Suspecting a CD error, despite it being an original manufacturer’s boxed set, I tried it on my wife’s laptop and it worked perfectly. The laptop has lower performance specs, memory etc than our desktop which is only 6 months old.

There was no obvious indication of security systems blocking the download and I’m wondering whether there is anything such as the higher speed of the desktop CD/DVD drive which might be causing the error about half way through the load. This is the first time that I’ve been unable to install software on our desktop computer.

Does anyone have any ideas for me to follow up before I part with money at our local computer shop for them to play round with it?

Cake and coffee at our place in Coromandel for whoever comes up with a fix!

Cheers,

Geoff

[NighthawkNZ:Me]

is the laptop networked... to the desktop... if it is try installing it from the laptop cd Drive across the network...

Sounds like you have a cd rom drive error problem.


or


there is a conflick of interest when installing. delete all setup files from HDD and even clean out your registry of the application. Do a full virus scan and spyware scan, even defrag scandisk for disk errors blah blah blah... reboot retry

[Lias]

A few days ago, I received some video and picture editing software (ULead Video Editor 11 Plus) on CD from our son in the UK. I attempted to load it on our desktop computer and part way through the installation process, got the good old “fatal error” message. I repeated the process twice more with the same result. It does create a folder and downloads stuff, but it’s clearly incomplete. I get the same result whether I log on as administrator or any other account.

Suspecting a CD error, despite it being an original manufacturer’s boxed set, I tried it on my wife’s laptop and it worked perfectly. The laptop has lower performance specs, memory etc than our desktop which is only 6 months old.

There was no obvious indication of security systems blocking the download and I’m wondering whether there is anything such as the higher speed of the desktop CD/DVD drive which might be causing the error about half way through the load. This is the first time that I’ve been unable to install software on our desktop computer.

Does anyone have any ideas for me to follow up before I part with money at our local computer shop for them to play round with it?

Cake and coffee at our place in Coromandel for whoever comes up with a fix!

Cheers,

Geoff

2 things I can think of trying, make a temporary folder on your HDD like c:\install, and copy the entire contents of the disc that keeps shitting out into that folder, see if it will copy.. If it does then try installing from there.

Or if you have access to an external CD/DVD drive try installing from that.. If needed I could come over on the weekend or something with an external drive.

[imdying]

ISO that sucker up on the laptop (you know, the same type of file as it would have been had you ripped the program off BT). Alcohol or Nero should do it.

[scracha]

Wot lias said. Some optical drives don't like certain disks. To be honest, the Ulead studio ain't that great. You're as well with the Microsoft Movie Maker 2 software that comes with XP. It's much easier to use too.

Don't even try basic video editing with less than 512MB ram. Ideally you should have over 1GB and a fast hard drive (not common on laptops).

Have got a copy of the latest Nero Studio thingie if you want (it's superb). Makes proper DVD's too (Movie maker just makes wmv or avi files).

Quite happy to take a drive up to Coro as I'm getting cabin fever....the viffer has been off the road for a couple of months now.

[xwhatsit]

Everybody so far seems to be assuming that the `Fatal Error' message is from the disc being unreadable. Could it not be just the installer crashing due to the usual Windows unreliability? If I remember correctly from my Windows days, fatal errors seemed to crop up from a number of reasons, such as wrong versions of DLLs, incorrect registry settings et al.

[Winston001]

Wot lias said. Some optical drives don't like certain disks. To be honest, the Ulead studio ain't that great. You're as well with the Microsoft Movie Maker 2 software that comes with XP. It's much easier to use too.

Ulead just ho hum? Interesting. I've got Ulead Video Studio 6 and I have to agree that after spending hours and hours on my first video edit, it was damned confusing. Unfortunately Movie Maker doesn't create DVDs although my version of Nero 6 does it but can I convert wmv or avi?

Apologies, it is a year since I last did it and I get very confused about formats, codecs etc.


As for your problem Blackbird, I had a similar issue and ultimately downloaded a driver update for the cd reader. Problem solved.

[Sanx]

Blackbird: Windows can generate 'fatal errors' for any one of a hundred thousand reasons. What I'd need to know is what fatal error it was. If you can repeat the problem, either write down the exact error message, including all meaningless error codes, or - even better - screen grab the error dialog box, save it and then post it on here.

That should allow me to narrow the problem down to a mere few hundred different reasons. And then I can go from there.

[scracha]

Blackbird: Windows can generate 'fatal errors' for any one of a hundred thousand reasons. What I'd need to know is what fatal error it was. If you can repeat the problem, either write down the exact error message, including all meaningless error codes, or - even better - screen grab the error dialog box, save it and then post it on here.

That should allow me to narrow the problem down to a mere few hundred different reasons. And then I can go from there.

Lias told him the most probable cause and the solution, I've told him alternative workarounds (use different software). Whilst I don't disagree with there being other possible causes of the error; if this is the reason then I would ask why waste hours shagging about with DLL's and registry settings. The fact of the matter is that I doubt Blackbird would want to arse around too much (assuming he could).

Geek Stuff
The Nero software (7.9.6) seems to cope with pretty much everything thrown at it. I've had it converting downloaded movies [1*] (avi, wmv, divx, xvid and mpeg) to "normal" DVD-R's.

As a side note, mmconvert is great for changing the video and sound formats and can handle whole batches of files. Combine with DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink and FairUse4Wm.exe and you can pretty much do what you like with most songs and videos.

Oh Dear, I seem to have perhaps contravened Comrade Clark's latest stupid law about telling people how to circumvent copy protection.. I'd best stipulate that you can only use a lot of these tools on your own legally purchased music/video collection to make copies for your own use.

[*1] legally of course

[Blackbird]

Thanks so much for all your advice. Sorry about the delay in replying but I thought I'd try all the suggestions first. Sad to say that none of them worked and as I'm pretty time-limited, my wife is dropping it off at the local 'pooter shop this morning for them to have a look at what the problem might be. I'll post the outcome.

Really appreciate all the pointers though and if any of you are doing the Coro Loop at any time, would love to say thanks personally with a feed. We're up on Coro Harbour most weekends so PM me if you plan a trip up there and I'll give you directions. We're only 2km from the centre of Town.

Many thanks again.

Geoff

[Sanx]

Lias told him the most probable cause and the solution, I've told him alternative workarounds (use different software). Whilst I don't disagree with there being other possible causes of the error; if this is the reason then I would ask why waste hours shagging about with DLL's and registry settings. The fact of the matter is that I doubt Blackbird would want to arse around too much (assuming he could).

It's not the most probable cause by a very long shot. It's just one of a long list of possibles. And as Blackbird has since stated, in this case it wasn't the cause. I was just offering help to work out what the problem was and then I could suggest a way round it.

[Blackbird]

Some feedback for everyone who was so darned helpful in trying to help me out this week. My wife dropped off the desktop PC complete with ULead software at the local PC shop. They said they'd come across loading problems before with Ulead software, so something must be a bit flaky there. Anyway, they tried reloading it and it didn't work so they had a poke around and found some stuff from my abortive previous loading attempts still in the registry. (I was only game to remove stuff which was obviously part of ULead). Once they had removed this, it loaded with no further bother. Cost was $40, so I got off very lightly.

Thanks once again for all your help - don't forget the coffee and cake at our place when you're passing through!

Cheers,

Geoff

[scracha]

Is that "computergeeks" in Thames? They're highly recommended. The Nero 7 DVD is on it's way to you anyways (plus a few other useful gems)

[Blackbird]

Is that "computergeeks" in Thames? They're highly recommended. The Nero 7 DVD is on it's way to you anyways (plus a few other useful gems)

Nah, Planet Computers in Tokoroa. I'm only at Coro at the weekends and have no computers up there.

Really grateful for your help - some good bottles coming your way when I pass through.

Geoff