I tried that whole "Create a new user in WinXP and reinstall it there" trick. It didn't work. So basically I'm screwed, right?

I'm sorry it didn't work for you, seems to have been a rather accidental 'lucky strike' for me. All we can do is keep the thread alive and hope sombody of Sony (anybody out there?) will jump in and give some help.

no need to mess up user accounts...
It's a problem in the registry about WRITE permissions.
Go to current user > software > sony blah blah and right click on the sony folder (in the registry) and choose permissions. There you'll find administrators and system. give full control to both and vegas will shine!!

Hello all,

Hum. I also do loose my preferences once in a while. I cant really reproduce it. And it is really annoying.
tommasoh : I've checked my rights in regedit, everything is as should be (full control).
Isnt there like a .ini file somewhere that gets trashed once in a while?
An answer would be cool...

Beugnet

Yup! Here too .. Just reinstalled Vegas and I keep needing to do the Prefs .. must be something simple to put this right/correct. It is driving me nutz .. Did NOT happen before ..

Grazie

sorry for the delay.. but I'm not a forum animal...
No idea about the preferences resetting... Goota be soemthing messed up in the registry imo.
I KEEP ASKING MYSELF WHY every sw developer uses the registry to store the settings for their progs. It's so stupid... why just don't save it in simple ascci file? easy to backup easy to spot for probs... It's just something I don't understand. Rhino, Lightwave and other really good progs do this, and restoring prefs is a breeze. also I thing the prefs dialog in vegas should be complteley reworked: the first tab it's a mess, they keep adding screens of checkboxes...it's insane.

I LOVE the rest of the vegas interface... but there are aome dark spots that should be taken care of in a next release.

Sorry for the typos. I'm lazy now!

GOT IT!

For the past month I was confused that the trial of Vegas5 would work fine on my laptop, but not on my main editing desktop PC. I would try to configure the window the way I liked it, only to discover the next time I opened the program that the window had defaulted to the original one. Furthermore, the "CTRL-ALT-D" layout method would give an error message.

(1) Back up your system first, in case you completely screw things up

(2) Go into Regedit

(3) Navigate to HKEY Current_user/Software/Sony Media Software/Vegas/5.0

(4) Right-click on the 5.0 folder, and select "Permissions."

(5) Set those permissions to "allow."

I found that Preferences wouldn't stick until I actually saved the .veg file. Here's what worked:

1. Open a new instance.
2. Make your Preference changes. Apply each tab. Check the box for applying to all new Projects. OK.
3. Make your Layout changes.
4. SAVE the project as the default Untitled or anything else. Close Project. Close Vegas.
5. Open new instance and see if the changes took. Should be good to go.

Let me restate the problem. When I open Vegas, I go to the Preferences window and start making changes. As soon as I close that window, the changes revert back to default. It's not like they go back only when I quit Vegas. It happens as soon as I close the Preferences. It's as if I don't have a Preferences screen at all!

I've did all the things that this thread mentions, from creating new user accounts to checking permissions in regedit, to deleting temp files, etc. NOTHING WORKS!!

I'm stuck with Microsoft Sound Mapper as my only audio device, and I'm stuck with whatever else Sony thinks I'll want when I start the program. Unless of course I go back to Vegas 3, which worked fine for me.

An interesting sidebar: The Preferences in Video Capture and in DVD Architect all behave normally. Changes I make are permanent unless I say otherwise. No fuss, no muss. Hmmmmmm.......

SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!!!

I love Vegas, and I'd like to continue using it!

I have found the problem. Once you read this, be sure to circulate copies to all of your friends for their own personal enjoyment. Please advise them not to have any food or drink in their mouths when they read it, as that may pose a choking hazard or expose their systems to inadvertent exposure to liquids.

I AM SOOOOOOOOO EMBARRASSED!!!!

Here was the problem.

In sheer desperation, I installed Vegas on my wife's system. She's running Win2000. Now, when I opened the Preferences window, I noticed something I had not seen before. At the bottom of the window were three buttons - "OK" "Cancel" and "Apply." Sure enough, when I made use of the "Apply" button, everything worked as God intended!

Now, you're probably wondering how I could not have seen these buttons when using my own system. It all seems to come down to screen resolution and screen size. My wife's monitor is a 14" and the resolution is set such that the Preferences window was entirely visible. On my 21" monitor, and I'm still not sure why, the Preferences window shows up so large that the bottom of it is hidden behind the Windows Toolbar. Once I realized I was missing something, I grabbed the top of the Preferences window, and.....

Lo and behold, the buttons were there!!! Now I can change preferences until I'm blue in the face!

Now if I could only find a kindly surgeon to cut my head open with a spade and put a brain in it!

For your information, my wife did in fact administer to me a swift kick in the butt for your sake. She has not ceased to mock me mercilessly.

Thank you for your patience. I'm off to find a hole in which to hide. Please accept my humblest apologies.