I was trying to install on to a fresh Vista 64 install. So Vegas 8.1 was the first program I installed. Anyway, I re-formatted the partition and re-installed Vista 64, this time Vegas 8,1 installed without issue.
Hi xberk, my issue seems to be some of the drivers for the motherboard. If I install Vegas 8.1 before I install the motherboard drivers all is ok. When I install the Gigabit drivers Vegas 8.1 will not work. Just a matter of finding which driver it is.
I have exactly the same problem with 8.1 and Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Trying now to troubleshoot. I've tried lots of potential solutions with admin privileges, but any combination always results in the utility giving me an error message.
Not seeing your thread here, I posted one separately. I'm running a Gigabyte x48 MOBO. Could you definitely confirm that MOBO drivers are the culprit that prevent registration of 8.1?
In my case yes, it is definately the Gigabyte motherboard drivers. I do not get the issue if I do not load the drivers... and the motherboard runs just fine with the default Vista 64 drivers. If I load the drivers I get the error, if I dont then I can go through the registration process.
I have not yet tried to load the drivers individually to see which one is the culprit.
OK, PLS. Thanks for such a quick reply. Further questions:
1. I assume you had to install at least networking drivers specific for your MOBO to access your local network (if any) and the internet. Correct? For instance, my MOBO driver CD presented a menu of drivers, one of which was for networking. Only after I installed those could I get outside of my box.
2. What happens (happened?) if you fresh install Vista, install and register Vegas 8.1 and make sure it'll run as you stated, and *then* update/install your MOBO drivers? Did you try that sequence? Success?
3. Did you mess with UAC in Vista? Seemed to have no effect whatsoever for me.
Apologies for being pedantic. This is my first PC build from scratch, and registering 8.1 was the very last step to set up my editing rig, i.e., my learning curve is nearly vertical.
1. My computer is connected to the internet via a wireless USB card. So actually I dont require the networking card.
You could install vista, install 8.1 and see if at least you get to the registration stage. Then install the network driver.
2. I did try this. After I loaded the drivers 8.1 would not start.
3. I did not need to mess with UAC. I tried this before I found the issue was the drivers. But it did not help.
PLS, many thanks for the reply. Sounds like you did your homework. I have exactly in mind your suggestion in point 1: try 8.1 on a squeaky clean install of Vista. Just checking: you did this with SP1, right?
For the life of me I can't figure out what MOBO drivers have to do with this piece of software, but I do take your empirical evidence at face value. If I go this route, too, and it works, I'll post back with my comments.
After some major troubleshooting today via PMs, e-mails, and phone calls, including one to Sony, I finally got Vegas 8.1 to install and register flawlessly. For an unfortunate soul who might sometime follow in my footsteps, here is a summary of events that led to success:
1. I checked to make sure that I could install *any* 64bit app on Vista 64, using Windows Media Encoder 64 as an example (downloaded from Microsoft). No problems there. It installed and ran just fine.
2. During my call to Sony, the tech said I should *not* have 8.0c installed on Vista 64. No surprise -- he said this combo is not officially supported by Sony. Sony recommended a specific clean uninstall procedure of all Sony products; then install only 8.1. I did exactly that and 8.1 still got booted out of the product registration stage.
3. Finally, I reinstalled Vista 64. I didn't reformat my HD, but I did delete the folder "Windows.old" that was created by the reinstallation via this method.
4. After Vista installed, and BEFORE ANYTHING else, including updates, I installed Vegas 8.1 with no problem, just as before. But launching the application this time (in administrator mode) progressed smoothly into the registration utility, and prompted me for the product key. YAY, it works! Now, I had to install my wireless card driver to access the internet. Once I did, 8.1 was registered, and it runs with no problem.
5. Next, I'm installing other device drivers and checking at each step to make sure that 8.1 runs. Right now I haven't installed my Gigabyte MOBO drivers; I'm just running default Vista drivers. I'm going to carefully install the MOBO drivers one by one to see if I hit any snags. But for now, I know a successful path to run 8.1.