Thanks for the warning. The 9 Beta didn't install sleezyCDsystem degrader, thankfully. Still have just Prassi PrimoDVD there.

PEter

Haven't had any problems with WM9 on my XP system. Also using PrimoDVD and it still works fine.

FWIW, I've found Magix, Nero, & Roxio all cohabitate nicely, thank you very much. Now Magix is interesting...

John, maybe this will help. With win98SE, in your windows\sysbckup folder are a few files named rb000.cab, rb001.cab etc... Note the name of the latest one before your experience with wmp9. Reboot to the command prompt, type scanreg, & follow the prompts to check your existing registry and restore the older backup you noted.

Also, there's a codec pack available from the MS download page (search windows media for win98 SE, then sort by date). Alternatively, you can allow wmplayer 7.1 to download the codec pack & install it by trying to play a winmedia 9 video file. Purists say it saves a bit of bloat.

FWIW, the codec files installed are different, so can't just swap them over, wmplayer 9 will not install in anything older then win98Se, RealOne will play wmv9 files (I should have tried it before downloading their winmedia plugin to give you more info), so far doesn't seem a way to get winmedia video 9 playback in wmplayer 6.4 (the ace mega plugin pro pack lists wm9 support, but haven't tried it on a non-wm9, wmplayer 6.4 system yet).

mike

That is actually what I do. I was just experimenting because many have posted throughout the internet about problems with WMP9. If those programs are cohabitating nicely for you, you are lucky. There are warnings in the support centers for other burner software regarding the conflicts. Here is just ONE of them from the Ahead support center for Nero:

"Adaptec DirectCD is installed. In many cases Nero and Adaptec DirectCD / Easy CD do not run on the same computer. This problem can often be resolved by removing the file SCSI1HLP.VXD from the system. "
There is more about it here:
http://www.nero.com/en/content/helptool/170.htm#o170
This from Vivitar's Digital Camera website:

Vivitar digital camera conflicts with APIX.VxD for EZ CD Creator users.

"On a number of occasions users of Roxio's EZ CD Creator have experienced a VxD conflict Blue Screen when they attempt to install or use their digital camera on their PC. Oddly enough EZ CD Creator conflicts with many digital cameras on the market today. (Not only Vivitar models, but other brands, as well.) EZ CD Creator Users may resolve this issue by upgrading their EZ CD Creator Software."

From Dell Computers Support.....to lengthy to paste:

http://the-predator.tripod.com/dell/ecd3.htm#42-1

This from the Toshiba site:

If you are using an EZ CD Creator by Adaptec, you may experience problems connecting and downloading images from your digital camera (including 'blue screens'). If you are using an Adaptec EX CD Creator you might also experience similar symptoms and conflicts with other USB connected devices like scanners, external CD drives, or even Microsoft Windows Media Player. If there is a problem connecting your digital camera after installing the Adaptec software, please refer to the following URL for the patch from Adaptec:

Download link:
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverdetail.html?sess=no&filekey=aspi32.exe
DO NOT install ASPI32.EXE with Windows 3000, Windows ME, Windows XP, Easy CD Creator 4.x, or with Windows Media Player 7.0. If you have one of these applications (or operating systems), you will be using a different aspi layer that will conflict with the one provided in this file.

For Windows 98 and Win ME, Download link:
Download link:
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverdetail.html?sess=no&cat=/Product/ASPI-4.70&filekey=aspi_v470.exe
Adaptec EZ CD Creator 4 and above Windows Media Player 7 and above After the 4.70 file is downloaded to the computer and double clicked on it will be unzipped to C:\Adaptec\Aspi inside this folder there is a file called Aspiinst, that you will double click on to install the files. This will correct the Apix.vxd errors

And this from CDR-Info (The Recording Authority):

"Make Ez CD Creator v3.5c work with Win2k (thanks Johan for info)

"...You can actually use Easy CD Creator 3.5c on Windows 2000! The trick is to install the right things: I have a HP 8210i which came with the Easy CD Creator 3.5b, to get it to work under Windows 2000 I did the following:

1. Install Easy CD Creator 3.5b BUT DO NOT REBOOT
2. Upgrade to Easy CD Creator 3.5c BUT DO NOT REBOOT
3. UNINSTALL the DirectCD stuff
4. REBOOT

Works like a charm! The DirectCD stuff is obviously what causes the problems to Windows 2000, before doing like this I got reboots every now and then (and I mean major reboots, not even a blue screen, the next you see is the BIOS screen!), now I NEVER get any reboots anymore, works like a charm..."

6) Question: I have the following symptom with Win2k: "..Windows 2000 can't read a UDF disc formatted by Nero or WinOnCD except with the use of the Adaptec UDF reader. However this doesn't work all times and possibly crashes the system and in addition it won't read UDF/ISO hybrids...". What i can do?

The answer came from MS tech support:
"..From the information we have it appears that these programs (Nero and WinOnCD) are not properly compatible with the UDF 1.50 standard. I know that my disc was unreadable because it had not been properly closed, I closed the session but not the disc. This is also not compliant with the UDF spec. In closing it looks like you will have to use the Adaptec UDF reader to read your older CDs because they were not written to be fully UDF 1.50 compliant. The Adaptec reader is more open from the UDF specification and includes not fully supported features such as compression..."

7) Unistall 100% Ez CD Creator from Win2k (note that the plain words comes from ROXIO ;)

Most times the drivers of EasyCD and Nero can cause conflicts.

(This is typically caused by lower level system drivers associated with writing UDF. If everybody is following the rules as defined by Microsoft, this should not be the case).

Unistalling Ez CD Creator is one solution however the Ez CD Creator unistaller leaves behind several files which still causes problems to Nero (delete all following files, if present)

(In ECDC 4.xx releases there are separate installs for ECDC and DirectCD. If you uninstall ECDC in anything before ECDC 5.0, you will not uninstall DirectCD. This is a separate uninstall process which explains why you see the files listed below and still listed in the registry. This would be the case for any Roxio application that is still left installed (i.e Take Two or DirectCD) :

- CDR4VSD.SYS (Used by ECDC and DirectCD in Windows NT4)
- CDR4_2K.SYS (Used by ECDC and DirectCD in Windows W2K)
- CDRALVSD.SYS (Used by ECDC and DirectCD in Windows NT4 (older versions)
- CDRALW2k.SYS (Used by ECDC and DirectCD in Windows W2K)
- CDRALWNT.SYS (Used by ECDC and DirectCD in Windows NT4)
- CDRALVSD.SYS (duplicate)
- CDUDFRW.SYS (This does not exist in NT4/W2K. There is only a CDUDFRW.VxD used by DirectCD in 9x)
- CDUDF.SYS (Used by DirectCD in Windows NT4/W2K)
- CDRPWD.SYS (Used by DirectCD in Windows NT4/W2K)

which rested in the directory C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS and the file CDR4VSD.DLL in the directory C:\WinNT\System32 and restart Windows.

Additional: When the Adaptec software is uninstalled the registry is not reverted to use the Windows "cdrom.sys". You have to edit the registry to stop the Adaptec driver after uninstall. The critical keys that the software leaves behind after being uninstalled are in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SyStem\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-0 87002BE10318}

In this section you will find two keys called "UpperFilters" & "LowerFilters" and you will need to delete both of these keys and reboot to restore Win2K to the default CD driver. You should also search for other keys containing "cdralw2k" and "cdr4_2K" and delete these then delete these two files AFTER the reboot. Note you cannot delete the references to these in "ENUM" as they are generated from the class driver, but they will not be there after the reboot.

(This is the same issue as described above. It would be dangerous to delete the whole upper and lower filter keys if somebody else had their drivers installed in this location. In W2K it is not a good idea to only delete the upper and lower filter keys. You must also delete the Service registry entries and the drivers themselves. Again, this will be handled if ALL of the Roxio applications are uninstalled (i.e ECDC, DCD, and Take Two).

In addition there is an article in the MS knowledge base about this..Check it over here.

Mission complete!

8) A PIII 600 notebook, adaptec 1480A cardbus scsi card, plextor 121032S in a external casing and of course w2k. Even when I put in the adaptec's 4.60 aspi drivers, I was not able to write at all. After starting each write, proceeding to about 23%, nero and ezcreator just hangs. A coaster was created. I had more than 20 coasters before I found the solution. I had to add the following into the registry before I was able to burn properly, either with burnproof on or off.

Registry
1. Drivers from Adaptec version 1.00b using Aic78xx.inf
2. c:\winnt\system32\Regedt32.exe
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servicesaic78xx\Paramaters\Device
4. Edit, Add Key, DisableDisconnects, REG_DWORD, 0 (string)
5. Edit, Add Key, DisableSynchronousTransfers, REG_SZ, 0xff
(string)
6. Edit, Add Key, DisableTaggedQueuing, REG_SZ, 0xff
(string)
7. Edit, Add Key, NumberOfRequests, REG_DWORD, 0 (string)......................................................etc etc etc"

If you want me to find some more examples I certainly will.

John

Very odd. I've been using the entirity of EZ-CD creator from day one on my Win2000 system, and didn't even know I was supposed to be having problems. Oh, well, you win some, you lose some. I'm sure I'll have trouble with something else to make up for it.

I had EZ CD Creator mess up a system in the past. It messed up something to do with .vxd drivers or like crafttech mentioned. Crippled the system, until, fortunately, I was able to get it uninstalled and cleaned completely off of the system. That was in Win98. I don't use Easy CD anymore.

You shouldn't have a problem with Win 2000 and EZCD Creator. B. Gates and the gang decided to kill off EZCD (another "competitor") like a Python...slowly. Let's face it, WMP9 has been in the planning stages for years and it's part of an overall strategy to capture the media content development and distribution markets.
It's XP that has a problem with EZCD. I finally got rid of EZCD Creator. SoFo products work great for me. Let's hope MS doesn't decide to force everyone to use MovieMaker in the future!