agree with john, and like many others i too make a living from vegas, however, i have to say that there are 'problems' which might have to do with any number of factors, including but not limited to: video cards, system setup, conflicting software / hardware / wetwear, etc

of course, not to mention vegas's own baggage in the shape of wildly erratic gpu implementation, and in some cases, totally inexplicable but certainly vegas related idiosyncrasies, such as my own 'render as' crashes.

however, i've grazed the other grass and there's nothing there that's perfect either!

if i'm going to have to suffer, i prefer doing so with vegas ;-)

My relationship with Vegas right now is much like a low point in a marriage. I'm not leaving, but at times it has been rough. There have been days when I couldn't even start the program for hours. I have now figured out that plugging in or unplugging in a USB drive seems to get me past that. I plug or unplu a USB drive then try starting Vegas again and it will start right up. Then there are the memory crashes when I try to call up the render dialog. Once this would start, repeated attempts at rendering would crash repeatedly. I now realize that starting a new blank project, inserting an empty video rack, calling up the render dialog, canceling out, then reloading my original project will let me render. Took a couple months to figure out, but eventually it worked it out.

Aside from these two rather major issues, Vegas is pretty good. I really know the program and can make it do whatever I imagine. I don't want to change platforms. There have been times though where I would have been fired if I had a producer looking over my shoulder. Every other program runs exceptionally well on my system.

I realize that many people here have no problems. I also know that many of us are having issues and that those of us who are have high powered systems that have no issues whatsoever with any other software.

Laurence, you have a dirty installation...I would not put up with any of the protocols to start and use VegasPro as you describe. I would not and I do not. Do I get dirty installations? Yes, of course everyone using a given image of the Windows OS will eventually end up with a dirty installation.
Now is that to say that dirty installs are the fault of software alone? And again the answer is NO, because managing hardware changes and aging of chipsets with driver changes is also a path to eventual dirty install.

SO you know the protocol. Start with a new boot drive, install Windows OS base first, check out issues with hardware and system with event viewer - save all documentation you create and save the base as a generic image.

Then install your base utilities (minus anti-virus) and save that as 2nd level working image. Then install your preferred choice of VegasPro, test against all previous working parameters, and save a good working image.

"I realize that many people here have no problems. I also know that many of us are having issues and that those of us who are have high powered systems that have no issues whatsoever with any other software."

And so few in the middle.

Most Vegas users are in the middle. Users who just wish they didn't have to work around glaring problems. This forum has more than it's share of one-eyed Vegas supporters. Those who couldn' t function with Vegas have already gone.

I still have both my eyes... but, truthfully, I think workflow has nearly as much to do with the line between Vegas supporters or bashers as does the system configuration.

Yes, any software should be expected to do what it claims it can do. I honestly don't know if Vegas can or not. I haven't tried to see. I do mainly broadcast work and rarely do more than cuts, dissolves, color correction and out. Vegas can do compositing, but other tools are easier and IMO, better, so I use them instead. My source footage is all AVCHD, P2 or uncompressed. My renders are MP4, XDCAM, or uncompressed. Occasional DVDs. Other than the long-lasting wait for bug fixes, I have no issues with crashes, non-starting, etc.

Should Vegas work for everyone at the level SCS claims? Sure. That would be great. Until tighter systems specs, drivers, etc. are specified by SCS, I don't think it will happen. But there are many pro workflows that avoid the majority of Vegas' issues, and I think a lot of us remain happy with that. I continue to hope Vegas eventually satisfies its entire user base. I do love working with it and want it to stick around.

OK, I think I should add my experience here. I have been using a Xeon-based workstation for over 7 years through several version of Windows with great success. Recently things stopped working reliably with several renders ending in a crash. I did a complete fresh install of Windows7 (thinking the upgrade to Windows 8 was killing me) but it didn't solve my problems. As most of the crashes appeared to happen when the temperature in the system started to go up, I started to distrust the hardware. Maybe thousands of hours of non-stop rendering and resulting temperatures had taken their toll on the CPU, memory or graphics card. I decided to give it a rest and build myself a brand new box: extra good cooling, i7 CPU, full 32 GB of RAM. Not only is the system rendering without any crashes, the renders that used to take about 7 hours (about 70 minutes of 1080p video to either 480p MPEG-2 or 1080p AVC) are now done in 85 minutes (near real time!). I'm happy as a clam.
Hindsight: I think it's not just the temperatures but also the systems ROM BIOS that was never made to support Windows 7. Who knows, who cares. Oh, and thanks to the Corsair 550D case I cannot hear my PC when my notebook is running.

Good hardware is the basis of good software.

+1 for good hardware and low heat. I also think there are issues with linking of GPU effects on the timeline. For some reason I will be working with GPU effects on, and all of a sudden the system will get crashy. I turn off GPU and the system stabilizes, or is able to render.

I also think that those who are the most vocal on vegas crashing, as also the least likely to fill out their system specs. Most likely due to poor hardware choices.

ENGR, I, like you, love Vegas and couldn't figure out what the issue was. One thing kept me searching for answers - THE FACT THAT VEGAS PRO WORKS FOR THOUSANDS and that it would be tremendously irresponsible for the SONY CS team to turn out such a bad product. Vegas doesn't crash for no reason. Every time it does, copy the error log and study the issues, ntdll errors, NVidia.dll error, aviplug.dll, etc. Mine would crash every two to three minutes with a two hour, 15 track wedding project on one point. Vegas is quirky, but so are AVID and Pinnacle. Heck, go to the FCP Forums - think only SVP has issues? Hah! Follow these steps for a trouble free Vegas experience:
1. Nothing beats issues like the proper HP with a decent CPU, memory and video card. You need at least a 3.2 Ghz CPU - preferably a quad core (best bet? a XEON), with 16 Gig RAM and THE PROPER VIDEO CARD. If you don't have a GTX 570, the benchmark card, then you are at risk. I had a GTX 660 and went back to my Quadro FX4600 with the oldest driver I could find 259.12. It ran much faster and on only 1/10 the CUDA cores. CUDA is overrated. Most video cards are made for Gamers not editors.
2. Never update your video card once you have it tuned in. I tried 7 different drivers before I settled. I timed how long it would take to display the file icons in the Project Media folder and then how long it took to display the graphic info on the timeline. The difference was 8 in one second vs. 1-2 every second. Also see if you can play two or three tracks on Best Quality preview with little to no choppiness. Find the driver that can.
3. Start with a completely clean installation of ALL your software. Make a mirror copy of it all with Acronis or equal. Windows will eventually corrupt itself and everything in its path. I have over 1,100 programs loaded and can make it all new in 22 minutes if I suspect issues, and have done so many times. In addition to Vegas 10, 11 & 12, I have AVID MC 5 (with all the support software), AVID Express Pro, AVID Liquid 7, AVID Studio, Pinnacle 9 - 15, Adobe CS5.5 Creative Suite and Cyberlink 8-11. They all work fine together. Vegas is by far my favorite now that it works well.
4. Turn off Drive Indexing, a major cause of crashing for me.
5. Update your ntdll.dll file. Google it and follow steps for correcting this Windows issue that affects editing.
6. Try turning off GPU accelerating. It made no difference for me but it has helped others.
7. Make sure that your OS, Vegas PRO and your temp files all reside on the same drive and always turn off power saving devices.
8. Make sure your HDD is new or get an SDD. My old HDD C: drive was on the fritz for about a year just after I first loaded SVP 12, and didn't know it. it worked great for a while then started having problems. I NEVER thought it was the drive.
9. SVP doesn't like certain files. I had a project that was choking on mov files sent to me so I converted them to avi's. Turned out that of the 14 mov's only two were corrupted or inconvertible.
So many things can cause issues with video editing software. After a year of research, these things helped me. You don't list your System Specs so we all have no idea if you even have a capable machine. SCS's minimum standards for SVP apply to small projects with SD files in avi. With the system I have, I could not do a RED project. You'd need a dual quad core XEON for that. I render a lot of HDCAM, XDCAM, EX, AVCHD, MOV and HDV stuff, all of it 50 Mb/s or less. Good luck.