Here's What I have:

Operating System
Platform: Windows XP
Version: 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 3)

My DVD+RW drive:
Vendor: _NEC
Product: DVD+RW ND-2100AD
Firmware version: 103D
Driver interface: SFMMCX (17)
Location: adapter(00), device(00)
Drive letter: E
Buffer Size: 2048 KB
Max read speed with current disc: 5.1X (7056 KB/Sec)
Max write speed with current disc: 4.1X (5645 KB/Sec)

DVD Architect Studio 4.5d

Purchased VMS Platinum upgrade; Vegas works fine; Cinescore loaded fine; DVDAS won't even open, though I believe I registered it anyway on-line. Upgrade was purchased on-line and downloaded. I have un-installed/re-installed 3 times. Could it be my DVD drive? I tried unsuccessfully to update its firmware, perhaps a newer drive might work? Thanks....

Yes, but how fast is your processor, how much RAM do you have and, above all, how much free, defragmented space is on your C drive?

Does it show on your list of installed programs if you go to the un-install programs icon in control panel?

Does the drive work with other software?

You could try starting Windows with other software not running, using MSCONFIG.

Mike

I've got 63.8 GB of disk space and freshly defragged, still won't start...I am going to uninstall and re-install 3.0 to make sure that still runs.

Anyone think it might be the drive/firmware is too old for this version of DVDAS?

Thanks.

Anyone think it might be the drive/firmware is too old for this version of DVDAS?

Even if it is, that just means you might have trouble burning with the drive. It wouldn't prevent DVDAS from starting. I've used DVDA (Pro version) on computers that don't even have DVD burners. Works just fine (other than not being able to burn a disc).

What are you doing to start DVDAS 4.5? Double-clicking a DAR file? Double-clicking the DVDAS icon? Running directly from the executable file? Whatever you're doing, try the other methods. Maybe it's simply a matter of file associations or the shortcut being corrupted somehow.

And what exactly happens when you do any of the above? Do you get a Windows hourglass briefly, and then it goes away? Or do you get absolutely no response at all?

Rob

Tonite I uninstalled 4.5d, reinstalled 3.0 (still works), re-downloaded the version of DVDAS 4.5 I purchased, reinstalled it, and still nothing. I get an hour glass for about 0.5 second, then nothing. I looked at the files in Program Files\Sony\DVDAS 4.5 and I see 2 Adobe Photoshop Elements files that were last modified at the same time as some of the 4.5 files - does that seem right? I do have Elements loaded on my system. Also, I've rendered .mpg files on Adobe's Premier Pro and tried to use them in Sony products and can't. Does Adobe do things to screw with their competitors products?

Getting desperate... I tried running 4.5 from desktop icon, RUN and double clicking .exe, all with same result - I did receive the authentication code for DVDAS 4.5, hope I can use it...

Can't image that Photshop Elements is the cause...

Here are some suggestions from Sony's knowledgebase:

Software not opening on first launch
My program will not start

If neither of those work, I'd suggest contacting Sony.

Rob

I've the same problem. Running XP SP2. I checked with filemon/regmon dvdarchst45.exe tries to open (near end) "C:\Program Files\Sony\DVD Architect Studio 4.5\.dll". So it looks like there is something wrong. Might it be a 'bug' in the 4.5d version that has recently been released?

Updating your system might help.

Your XP should be up to SP3 by now, for instance. I also recommend going to Windows Update manually and clicking the Custom button to pick up some of the updates that don't come in automatically. You'll often get updated drivers (RealTek audio, for instance) and updates for your hardware you wouldn't otherwise.

It might also be wise to update Quicktime, which plays a role in many PC based video functions.

Solved the issue. The program "ApplicationRegistration.exe" (part of DVDAS) tried to create a file "SonyInterchange.txt" in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents". For some reason the permissions on this directory was broken. When I fixed it, I could start the program. One can apply the suggestion from http://windowsxp.mvps.org/sdperms.htm to fix the permissions (google for "all users documents access denied").

I used the tool "ProcessMonitor" from "www.sysinternals.com" to trace what "ApplicationRegistration.exe" was doing and found the error "ACCESS DENIED" on the file creation command.

Unfortunate there is not a nice message in a popup window or in event viewer.

I had the same exact problem and was in the process of comparing the ProcessMonitor output from a good system with that of my bad system when I saw your post. Fixing a protection problem on the shared folder allowed the program to start -- thanks!

There really needs to be an error message describing the problem rather than just exiting.

FWIW, on one XP Home system I had a security tab but the bad one did not so I had to install an NT4/W2K utility to enable the security option.

Well, it looks like I'm having this problem now too, except, it's with DVD Architect 5 Pro (and now 5.0b) on Vista. Basically, on Monday night of this week everything worked fine, and then on Tuesday night, it kept asking me to register. The page would come up with my correct information auto-filled in, then I'd hit "OK," and off it would go checking with Sony's servers (presumably), then tell me everything was OK. Except, then nothing happened. DVD Architect never appeared. Now it doesn't even get to the page where you fill in your registration info; it just pops up the first page that says DVD Architect needs to be registered, and then nothing happens after that.

So I tried a bunch of stuff, including rebooting, uninstalling and reinstalling, uninstalling and installing 5.0b, making sure all startup stuff was turned off (Windows button -> msconfig -> startup), making sure all USB and Firewire external stuff was disconnected, uninstalling the only thing I'd installed in between -- the backup software that came with a Seagate external drive, etc. Nothing worked.

Then I saw this thread. But I'm on Vista and the XP recommendations above aren't the same (folder structure, etc.), so I downloaded Process Explorer to see if I could figure anything out. After some fiddling around, I was at least able to see that the DVD Architect startup did indeed seem to be failing on "ApplicationRegistration.exe," so it seems I too am probably having a permissions problem.

So what it boils down to is: anyone have any recommendations on how to translate the XP procedure above to Vista? Or maybe even better, give me some hints on how to use Process Explorer to figure out where "ApplicationRegistration.exe" is failing? I'm intrigued by eremmel's report about finding out where the failure happened, but so far I can't figure out how to determine that in Process Explorer, and the help file doesn't work (all entries in "Help" say "The address is not valid." Another Vista issue?). Anyway, I'm poking around on the Sysinternals forum to try to figure things about better, but I thought I'd ask here too.

Thanks,

-- Matt

Is it at all possible that this is related to your security software?

Programs like Norton 360 and AVG Home Security are notoriously over-aggressive and could be blocking communication between your computer and Sony. Even Spybot S&D, which includes a registry protector, could be snagging it.

Yeah, I suppose there's always a chance it could be that (and in this case, it would be the McAfee that came with the computer). It would be odd that it worked fine for the 5 months that I've had the computer all the way up until Monday night, and then the next night... nothin'. But, I suppose there could have been some automatic update that hosed something. I'll have to check that when I get home this evening.

Turning off McAfee didn't help, but I did find a solution. I feel silly for not trying it earlier, but choosing "run as administrator" on DVD Architect's .exe did the trick. I'm logged in as an Administrator, and I have no idea what would have changed in that regard between Monday and Tuesday night, so I don't understand why I need to specify this, but it does allow the program to start.

Boy am I glad I found this thread. I had the same problem -- installed DVD-A a couple months ago and couldn't get it to start. Tried all kinds of things (reinstalls, etc. like some others here) and wasted a lot of time before giving up. "Run as administrator" finally did the trick. Even though, like MattR, I'm the administrator of my PC. After the initial registration is completed, the program launches normally.

Sony, if you're going to code the program this way (dumb), there's no excuse for not having a Knowledge Base entry on it. No WAY the typical user is going to figure this out.

> there's no excuse for not having a Knowledge Base entry on it

There is a knowledgebase entry that covers this situation here.

Mark

> There is a knowledgebase entry that covers this situation here.

(1) This solution doesn’t turn up when you search the knowledgebase for “Program will not start” or “Help with product activation.”
(2) It’s labeled as for Vista users (I don’t have Vista)
(3) It starts, “When I install a Sony Creative Software program and register it within the Administrator account…,” which begs the question: how would a user know to do this?

The solution described here does address the problem discussed in this thread. It just needs to be correctly labeled (applicable to XP as well as Vista) and linked to searches for the program not starting.

There is one other solution (Answer ID 1109 “Error: The application could not start”) that looks like it would work, but (1) it’s keyed to an error message, and we didn’t get an error message, just a half-second hourglass and then nothing; and (2) it requires changing the registry, always a risky act. When was the last time you bought commercial software that required you to manually edit your registry in order to use it? Again, dumb programming.

Just to be fair, Sony has absolutely no control over an individual computer's UAC settings, nor should it. Antivirus software is notorious for changing user account settings, even if the user hasn't, and which are often so hidden that it would take a month of Sundays for the average user to find them and figure out what is causing the problem. Sony software is complex, but it won't bypass system security blocks, nor is it designed to.

I got so frustrated with Vista's UAC (not with Sony software) that I finally turned it off at someone else's advice and my world is a lot happier now . .