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ProShow
Gold 3.2 Installed under 64-bit Vista
The Symptom: ProShow Gold 3.2 appears
not to install under 64-bit |
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I'm glad to have a chance to give back to the Web user community that has helped me through so many challenges over the years. After I built a new machine I was anxious to get ProShow installed to crank out a project for church. The new quad core Intel box was a big step up from the five year old Athlon, on which ProShow worked, even turning out a 30-minute epic including over 700 stills with quick transitions, a lot of Ken Burnsing, a video clip and full sound track. The show took hours to render and burn to DVD, but it ran with only one persistent several-second freeze during the video, from which it always recovered.
"Not supported under 64-bit Vista" is shorthand for one of several things; among them, "It will not run under 64-bit Vista - period" and "We haven't figured out how to make it run under 64-bit Vista". I'm in the camp that says that serious vendors should make their products run under 64-bit because people who build 64-bit systems are the ones who demand more and who know a little more than average about what were doing - or can at least pound their way through the problem and figure out the mistake we're making. We might also be in it for business and just jump ship to something similar that works - without much pounding at all! I know, I know - if we really had any nerve we'd hop to Linux, right? I hope that the observations that follow will do two things: spare you the angst and foul language that I lowered myself to use (after the kids were in bed, of course...) and help the Photodex developers to tweak their otherwise solid product for 64-bit Vista (or at least to catch and correct installation hurdles that either we or Vista might throw at it). |
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[Update 2008-09-26] I've had a good e-mail conversation with Chuck from Photodex after I sent them the link to this article. He has installed 3.2 on his Vista 64-bit machine without the issue here. I'm impressed that the Photodex crew actually ran some tests looking for this symptom as a result of reading this. That's responsive. The symptom didn't recur for them - like when you take your car to the shop and the noise is nowhere to be heard - but Chuck offered the following observation that I'll share in case it will help you. "We have performed some tests on some computers with multiple drives, and have attempted to recreate the situation you've experienced and documented on your website, but have not received any errors resulting from the installation of Proshow into a non-C: drive. Therefore, the root cause of those errors is much more likely to be related to an internet service in the background still actively accessing the browser's code, thereby causing the Presenter installation portion of the installation to be blocked from installing itself into your browser." I didn't have any browser-based products running during ProShow installation, but who knows what evil lurks in the heart of Vista. Hey - it took reading post after post to figure out that I have to re-run Monaco Gamma every time the machine comes back from screen saver because Vista apparently can't keep the video card from resetting the display profile when screen saver pops. Chuck went on to advise, based in the install log file I sent, that the Photodex Presenter app is the one that had trouble installing. I've never tried to stream any of my videos from an online service so haven't noticed a problem. Chuck said that re-installation of it may be required and sent this link http://www.photodex.com/downloads/go_presenter to the program and documentation. [End of update] |
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| So, without further rambling, here are the steps that got me up and running and some screen captures from along the way. | ||
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Run psgold_32_2047.exe as Administrator | |
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Select Run | |
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Select Next
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I had run this install before and entered my registration key, which the new install picked up. | |
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Why not? | |
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Notice that I changed the default C:
installation root to D:
You can experiment with a C: install if you have trouble with Non-C:. Photodex advises that there appears to be no issue with either 64-bit O/S or Non-C: installs, so use these observations however they will help you. |
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Captain's choice | |
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Well, sort of ready... | |
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It really was installing - just like it said! | |
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Sounds simple enough, but pressing Ok causes the
top dialog box to disappear - and then reappear several seconds later - to
infinity and beyond, as far as I can tell.
Press Cancel Cancel until the debug text spits out, and the installation will be complete. I got this message after five Cancel clicks… |
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Clicking Ok displayed this error dump. It shows that PS continues to look for a C: installation. Is the C: location hard-coded? I’m no programmer, but break and ‘fix’ a fair amount of stuff like this. Go figure. Here is the entire error dump: SUCCESS: Created "C:\Program Files
(x86)\Photodex Presenter" Whatever the root cause, clicking Ok from the this Cannot Install dialog completed the installation. |
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Reboot when it asks and all appears well.
"Your mileage may vary" and other standard disclaimers apply. You are entitled to a cheerful refund of every penny you spent for this wisdom in the event it does not perform to your expectations.
Happy creating!
System Technical Info
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Excitement
turned to frustration when I got this error message at the end of installation;
sort of like "Critical error on installation diskette 28" back
in the day. The Photodex phone support tech told me that ProShow isn't
supported under 64-bit Vista and that [my words] stranded on a polluted
tributary with no suitable means of propulsion. I gave it another shot
with an e-mail and got the standard response suggesting a video card driver
update and running Install as Admin. Neither helped and I wound up with an
unkillable version of this error message. Searching posts online turned up a few
successful installations and a lot of unsuccessful ones, but nothing that helped
in my case.