Thanks - it may be the case that "if it works with that configuration for you, enjoy...if not, don't be surprised if it does not."

I remember that about Vegas needed to be installed on the same drive as the OS. Also, what you describe is very close to 'network rendering'. I know it is not exactly that, but on Vegas Full supports network rendering. You are stretching the possibilities of Vegas here. What you try to do here would never be possible with Pinnacle or Premiere. The easiest way to avoid all your problems would be to use a portable drive (or even an usb memory stick) to travel between the two computers. Keep all your files on it in one directory. Have VMS 9 installed on both boxes - Sony's licence allows it. When you finally decide to render, just use a harddrive as a target drive.

What you are trying to do is something I do almost every morning -- I sit in my living room with the TV on and a cup of coffee, and open, edit, and render projects in Vegas on my wireless notebook that are all stored with their media on a firewire drive attached to the desktop in the den. I can render to the remote drive or to the notebook. Never a lockup or problem.

Since you are getting disc errors the problem is probably somewhere else than in Vegas. Noting the severity of them I suspect a hardware issue that is independent of your trying to use Vegas in this manner. Suggest you image that disk while it's still usable and run a full scan. Check the cabling to the drives also, as well as reseat the RAM. Also look for a cpu or northbrige fan going bad.

Other than mention that I have an "N" network (speeds are almost as fast as 100Mbs full duplex, but don't buy the hype that they are 3x faster), I don't know how to help because I have never had an issue, even on two hour "wireless" renders. Opening and editing projects, and preview of SD material is certainly not a problem for me over a wireless network.

I also have network rendering working in Vegas Pro, but it can be a hassle to set up. Most of what I do is right over the network while logged in to the other box.

As far as I know you can install Vegas on any drive you want and render to any drive you want -- again no problems here and I go back to Vegas 2 on Win 98SE.

Ivan - thanks, I've thought about an ext drive just for the video files - that's certainly better than trying to maintain two identical sets on two PC's. But to make it all work without any extra fiddling around, the drive letter would have to be the same -- I think -- let me dwell on that.

musicvd - thanks to you , too - at least I know someone else is having no troubles with the same setup. I have a "G" network - one PC upstairs, the other downstairs immediately below. Great signal.

The DESKTOP PC (the one that does NOT have the video files) is a new barebones PC from Microcenter, bought in July 08. The drives, however, are older, 'cause they came from a PC whose MBoard decided to no longer let the power supply turn on. Imaging the disk is a great idea before it goes, but it is weird that I've now tried loading 6 other projects, and they all load okay. It may not be Vegas per se, but definitely something that Vegas is triggering. The one that it quits on is the longest, 'bout 15 whole minutes, so it's not "that" big. I'll just stay clear of that one.

I've written down the errors, and one said something about referencing a Sony-related subdirectory on C - I'll post that later when I get home.

Dave H.

Me again.

Recall my config:

Wireless laptop:
Vista SP1, ~2.0 cpu AMD dual-core, 2 MB mem, one hard drive.
VMS9 on C:, as are all the source, rendered, and project files

Desktop hardwired to router:
WinXP, SP2, 1.8 Intel cpu, 1 MB mem,
HD1 - C: and D:
HD2 - G: H: I: J:, VMS9 on drive I:

More info on the desktop:

Drive C: Capacity - 16GB
Available - 425MB now ; about 600MB a couple of days ago. Clearly, I think I need a lot more room on C just on principle.

Drive D (same physical drive as C:) Capacity - 21GB
Available - 20GB

Here is the first "diag" msg that showed up after I was forced to power down the desktop :
*******************************************************************************
Documents and Settings\default\LocalSettings\Temp\WERc0b0.dir00\VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.hdmp contains a nonvalid link.
*******************************************************************************
On drive C there are 14 sub-dir's in "Temp" that start with "WER".
9 contain Vegas files. 2 contain ttax.exe.hdmp and ttax.exe.mdmp, so it's clear this Temp sub-dir is indeed doing "temp" stuff.

All 9 are dated Feb 9, 2009, the night I was having the lockups..
1 has a time of 6:31 pm -- the other 8 have 6:32 pm.
These 9 take up a little over 400 MB, and my C: has still has 425 MB left. I was expecting it to have <100 MB after first discovering these temp Vegas files before looking at C's available size,but there's still 425 MB.

Here's what a couple files' sizes and names look like :

WER0b82.dir00
VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.hdmp 41,604 KB
VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.mdmp 2,841 KB
WER0ed4.dir00
VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.hdmp 41,604 KB
VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.mdmp 2,841 KB

Et Cetera, etc., etc.

The "WER" sub-dir that showed up in the msg, WERc0b0.dir00", looks like this:

WERc0b0.dir00
VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.hdmp 94,732 KB
VegasMovieStudioPE90.exe.mdmp 2,841 KB

"IT" had the 6:31 pm time.

I rebooted several times after that, but these were the last temp Vegas files created.

Looks like I might have a "running out of space" problem on drive C, but Vegas & Windows doesn't have a nice way of telling me.

"Maybe" that's what's happening. I'll move as much as I can to D.
I can still load the smaller projects. Hmmmm......

My other HD on the desktop is partitioned as G-H-I-J, about 10GB each, with plenty of room each.

Stay tuned.

Dave H.