Adobe Encore 2.0 & Vista conflict

[brenda]

In another thread on copy protection in the DVD replication process, I've been detailing my continuing saga with installing a copy of Encore 2.0 that I bought on E-Bay and couldn't install/activate after transferring the license. I thought the problem was just that Adobe wasn't letting me activate it because it was previously owned, but in talking to the Nth customer service rep in 2 weeks, the rep told me that what I was describing was a problem that has been reported by others who try to install Encore 2.0 on a Vista OS. He told me where to look in the Adobe user forums. Numerous people reported the program got most of the way through the installation process and then began rolling back the installation until it removed the program from the computer. I was able to install the 30-day test version, however, and it seemed to be working perfectly. Because the test version appeared to be working perfectly I didn't believe the Adobe tech support rep who told me that Encore 2.0 does not work on Vista. In the Adobe user forums I found a number of people who had developed work-around solutions that allowed them to foil the rolling back operation and install Encore 2.0 on a Vista computer. The work-arounds involved scary things that looked like they were over my head and might mess up my operating system if I made a mistake. I was just about ready to try them, but then I wondered if I'd encounter other problems later on caused by the Vista/Encore conflict.

Yesterday I started having other issues with Encore. Using the test version I succeeded in making an almost complete Encore project, but could not render the motion menus (another recurring problem documented in the Adobe forum), and when I tried to transcode avi files and render the project it hung up. All of the problems have the same m.o. - no error message, no crash, it just keeps trying to do it forever. Just like the rolling back installation thing, it gets to a certain point and then backs up, except inside the test version - when there is a progress meter displayed - it gets about 90% done with a task, then rolls back to about 80%, then proceeds to 90% where it rolls back to 80% again. I thought this may be caused by some kind of block Adobe put in the test version to make sure nobody could successfully generate any actual output using the test version, but I found other complaints in the Adobe forums. As Bill Hunt noted in one of the threads there, it's hard to tell whether people who complain of the problems try the workaround solutions and live happily ever after, or encounter another problem a while later and give up on Encore/Vista and just never come back to the forums to report on it.

I did a lot of reading from the Adobe forums last night and decided to give it one last try. I started a new project and imported avi files, and told it to transcode the files.* For the last 3 hours it has been trying to transcode a 1 minute and 18 second avi file. There was no error message or crash - it just says it's still transcoding. I checked the task manager and Encore is still running. The same thing happened earlier when I tried to render the motion menus and build the project. After reading all the frustrating reports in the Adobe forums about these problems with Vista - even when using later versions of Encore - I'm beginning to believe Adobe tech support was right when they told me that Encore 2.0 doesn't work on Vista. I don't want to install Encore using 1 of my 2 activations only to have to reinstall it again. So I decided the best long range solution will be to buy XP, partition my hard drive, and install a dual boot system. I found instructions on how to do that on the HowToGeek.com. I went on Amazon and bought XP a few minutes ago. I'll let you know whether that does the trick. It only cost a couple of hundred dollars. Given the time I've been spending finding and trying work-arounds, only to reach another obstacle later, I can't see wasting any more time on it.

Incidentally, I also tried running the program in Windows XP service pack 2 mode (an option from the Control Panel in Vista) and that didn't help. I have other programs that also won't run on Vista, so the dual boot system will allow me to switch over to my new computer eventually (if I don't fill it up with moviemaking stuff!)

Just in thinking through my problem, I don't think it could be hardware compatibility issues, could it? The transcoding of assets is a RAM & hard-disk function - it shouldn't be using the video card, should it?

* I must confess that, in building my project using the test version, I skimmed over Jeff Bellume's chapter on transcoding assets because it was so complicated - and I built my "almost complete" project without transcoding the avi files. I built my timelines (with chapter markers) and playlists on the un-transcoded files. I assume I can't use those - right?

Once again, thanks for all of your help!

Brenda

[Bill Hunt]

Brenda,

Your problems should not be related to the vid-card, in any way. As you state, the Transcoding is RAM, I/O (hard drive), and CPU intensive, and pretty much in that order.

There have been reports of "the never-ending Transcodes," in both the Encore and the Premiere forums. I *think* that Eddie Lotter has a link to the Premiere-wikdia, that addresses that issue. Do not recall which forum it appears in, but will go search, plus I'll search the Premiere-wikia (http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page). Discussion of this behavior does exist, and I need to find it for you. Maybe there is an answer in that discussion someplace. At worst, I'll ping Eddie on the Premiere board and ask for his assistance, because I know I have seen links, that he has provided in the past.

Good luck,

Hunt

[Edit] OK, it was not Eddie, but Ruud Blauw, who posted the link, and it was to one of Neil Wilkes' articles (gotta' get my memory worked on, and I ain't talking RAM here). Here's the link: http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3bc44cc3

Don't know if you've seen that, or if it will help, but I hope that it does.

Also, you can install, Activate, and then de-Activate BEFORE uninstalling. There IS a counter that allows X Activate/Deactivate cycles, but Adobe can reset that. I do not recall what what X is, offhand. Obviously, you have become aware (through your continued efforts and experiences) of concurrent Activations, Registrations. It seems that a PS user, reporting to the PS forum, hit the "wall," with nine (9) Activations. IIRC, he wanted to Activate/Deactivate for some obscure security issues in his workplace. An odd request, to say the least, but the number 9 sticks with me. I had to Deactivate CS2 Suite from both my old Toshiba laptop and my Win2K workstation. Went almost perfectly, though Adobe Acrobat Pro did hiccup with the Deactivation & Add/Remove Programs on the Win2K box. It never did do it completely, but at least Deactivation/Activation went perfectly on my new workstation and laptop. All is well, that ends well, I guess.

[brenda]

I don't want to bore you with my many travails trying to get Encore 2.0 to work on my new Vista computer, so I'll keep the story as short as possible.

I just thought some of you might want to know what I have learned through research, trial and error, more research, etc. - in case you have to upgrade to Vista and don't want to scrap all of your old software.

After MUCH research on line I came to the conclusion that I wanted to spend the time and money installing a dual boot system, so I can run both Vista and XP. I wouldn't have done this just to run Encore, but there are other older programs I have that I couldn't move to my new computer because Vista is so finicky.

I have tons of online research I printed out about how to create a dual boot system by shrinking the current C: drive to create unallocated space of sufficient size to create a disk partition. (I'll save if in case anybody wants it or I decide later that I have to do that.) From the research I determined I would need 16 gigs to run Encore and about 2.5 for the XP operating system. The research shows that installing XP this way on top of Vista is problematic, and part of the process makes Vista unbootable.* You have to repair the boot config file which XP copied over. Different websites I found gave different advice on how to do this. All of them though, said that when you get to that particular dead-end, you have to insert your Vista DVD and tell it to repair the boot config file. I didn't have a Vista DVD because it came loaded on my computer, and HP tech support said I'd have to use my system recovery disks or the HP system recovery drive, which installs the whole HP thingy and all the stuff that came loaded on my computer, as well as Vista. I tried to look at the directories and even did some experimenting and could not find any way to access the boot repair. (Sounds like a problem for a cobbler, doesn't it?) So I concluded that I would have to buy Vista even after buying XP.

[*Note: if you install Vista on top of XP instead of vice versa, you don't have the boot repair problem, according to the research I've done.]

In the midst of this dilemma last week, I took the computer to the Geek Squad and they took $200 from me, then kept the computer for several days and told me they couldn't do it, or that they'd need another $150. I decided to get my money back, since I wasn't too sure the guy had ever done it before. I started over again today.

After more research I found that Vista's help menu has easy to use instructions on how to create a partition, format it, etc. as described two paragraphs back. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you print out and read all of them before beginning the process, because you may hit a snag as I did after investing all of that time. Once again, a point came when I needed the Vista DVD which I did not have. So I went to Best Buy and bought the Vista Ultimate upgrade (I'll tell you why later.) Hopefully if I try this other alternative I found or later decide for some reason that I have to go the partition route, HOPEFULLY the Vista Ultimate upgrade DVD will do the trick of repairing the boot.

After all of this, I was doing research on Microsoft's website and found something called Virtual PC 2007. It's a free program downloaded from Microsoft that allows you to create one or more virtual machines, each running its own operating system. Though published in 2007, I never heard of it until today, despite all the research I had done on dual boot systems. Weird. The description says it won't work on Vista Home Premium - it requires Vista Business, Server, Enterprise or Ultimate. So I bought the Ultimate upgrade. Once that's installed I plan to try out the Virtual PC 2007 program, and if that doesn't work, I'll at least have a Vista DVD to use to get past the boot config repair problem.

Had I known about all of this before deciding to buy Encore 2.0, I would have bought a non-Adobe product that works on Vista, since you can't just buy a post-Vista Encore by itself. On the other hand, I use my computer in my real job as a lawyer, and my old computer was due for replacement. Lots of the programs I own and use all the time are old enough to be incompatible with Vista, so this work-around will have multiple uses. Also, now that I know how to use Encore 2.0 (and have almost completed authoring the project in it, but just can't render it), I really am past the point of turning back.

So follow me if you dare - and at your own risk! I'll let you know how Virtual PC 2007 works.

Brenda

[brenda]

Back again. While trying to figure out how to configure Virtual PC 2007, I tried to print out the instructions and as the number of pages churning out of my printer mounted I worried if I was making another mistake. So I went online and googled "Virtual PC 2007" and found out, in a Wikipedia entry of all places, that Virtual PC 2007 does not support USB memory devices. Unbelievable!

No wonder there's nothing on the internet about Virtual PC 2007.

Back to plan A. I'm going to partition drive C and create a real dual boot system.

Brenda

[brenda]

I ran into another series of snags in trying to install XP onto the partition I created on my C drive - but fortunately, while doing research to figure out how to get around it, I discovered how to make a Vista Recovery Disk when your computer came pre-loaded with Vista and no Vista DVD. It turns out that my recovery disks I created off my HP computer would not do the trick of repairing the Vista boot, and I'm not sure my Vista Ultimate upgrade DVD would have done it either.

Go to http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-v ... -download/ and follow the directions there. In order to create it, you have to download and install several other free programs, including a torrent program (which I'd never heard of before). The process took quite a while, but it worked through to completion -- unlike anything else I've tried to do in creating a dual boot system (or in using Encore on Vista for that matter). It created a Vista recovery disk which works!!! And just in the nick of time.

Windows Vista really puts up a lot of defenses to stop you from loading XP, and the troubleshooting process is fraught with so many unknowns that it's really just a matter of trying stuff and seeing what happens - because what happens on the screen doesn't necessarily match what the bloggers say on how to do this.

[brenda]

I'm sorry to bore you with the blow by blow details, but just in case you have to upgrade your computer soon, I advise you not to do what I did.

I hit a complete dead end with my new HP Pavilion computer (6 mos. old, 3 gigs RAM, with 2 separate 250 gig hard drives, running Vista Ultimate). I was dead set on setting up a dual boot system so I could run Adobe Encore 2.0 (and several other older programs) on an XP drive. The Geek Squad kept my computer 6 days and couldn't do it. I spent days after that determined to figure out how to do it myself. I did so much research that I now know how to set up a dual boot system. (I'll give you my resources if you want to try it. [laughing demonically]).

After much trial and error I've come to the conclusion that it can't be done on my new computer, because it simply won't load XP. I googled the blue screen error code and found a checklist, all pointing to drivers. After days of research, I have not been able to find any drivers for the motherboard and chip set in my new computer that will support XP. The consensus seems to be that they didn't bother designing backwardly compatible drivers - or they haven't done so yet.

So, if you buy a new computer thinking you can just create a partitioned drive and load XP on that, or downgrade to XP all together if necessary to run your older programs, you should check to make sure there are available drivers compatible with XP before you buy the hardware.

Today I gave up on fixing the problem with the new computer and took my circa 2003 HP Pavilion (512 ram, 51G hard drive, used every day of its life) in to the Geek Squad and installed a gig of RAM and a DVD drive. I'm going to install and use Encore and a few other programs on that computer for as long as it lasts.

I sure hope they come up with solutions for the incapatibility issue before my old computer is forced into retirement - or that Adobe updates Encore as a stand-alone product, compatible with Vista or Windows 7.

Hopefully the next time you hear from me, it will be me celebrating the successful installation of Encore, and the final rendering of my video.

Brenda

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

After much trial and error I've come to the conclusion that it can't be done on my new computer, because it simply won't load XP...... The consensus seems to be that they didn't bother designing backwardly compatible drivers - or they haven't done so yet. So, if you buy a new computer thinking you can just create a partitioned drive and load XP on that, or downgrade to XP all together if necessary to run your older programs, you should check to make sure there are available drivers compatible with XP before you buy the hardware.

Sorry to hear that, Brenda. I had bought Mrs Twosheds a new HP computer and that came pre-loaded with Vista. Mrs Twosheds loves the speed of the new PC but HATES Vista. I too tried installing XP on it but had no luck. I had a vested personal interest in you achieving success because I was planning to bombard you with questions about how you managed it.

[brenda]

John -

I'm glad my travails came to someone else's aid, after all the time I wasted.

Vista is a great operating system for programs that work on Vista. The Microsoft Office Suite 2007 is a good example of a great use for Vista. It can do things that involve multi-tasking and integrating several programs that can't be done on any earlier operating system.

The problem is that for the first time I can remember (and I've been a computer geek since the early 1980s) - Windows came up with a new operating system that isn't always downwardly compatible with programs written for the previous generation of Windows. That's probably why Microsoft has already scrapped Vista and moved on to Windows 7. I'm not upgrading to 7 until the kinks are worked out. I already just upgraded to Vista Ultimate, hoping it would cure the problem with downward compatibility. That was $231 wasted. Hopefully there will be a patch eventually.

After 2 months of trial and error, my online research showed me I had hit a dead end. I got as far as creating a partition of drive C, carving out a 63 gig partition for virtual drive D, and formating it as NTFS. The problem is that when I loaded the XP installation disk into my computer and restarted it, booting from the DVD drive, XP went 99% of the way through the installation process, then I got a blue screen with an error code. I googled the error code and found out that it was related to drivers for my system not being compatible with XP. After many frustrating calls to HP customer support, and much online research, including subscribing to the relatively useful "Driver Detective" -- I was unable to find any SATA drivers for my motherboard - drivers I needed to load during the BIOS portion of the installation process in order to allow my computer's motherboard to communicate with Windows XP.

The Geek Squad suggested reformatting my hard drive and reinstalling my operating system, starting with XP and then going to Vista. That would have wiped out all of my installed programs and data on my hard drive. And it would have required that I have the original Vista operating system on DVD. I didn't have that because my new computer came preloaded with Vista, and there were no separate installation DVDs.

So I gave up and upgraded my old XP computer (HP Pavilion circa 2003) with 1 gig of ram, a DVD drive, a separate internal 230 gig hard drive, and a new power supply (because the other components wouldn't run on the old power supply). My XP computer has mostly new parts now, so hopefully it will last me a few years as a backup system, which I will use just for programs that don't work well on Vista.

I think Premiere Elements and Photoshop work fine on Vista, so I'm going to continue using them on my newer, more powerful computer. If they start encountering problems, I'll move them to my XP computer.

The frustrating experiences I've encountered trying to do this lead me to believe that Windows Vista was such a dramatic leap in changes in computer architecture that you really shouldn't try using incompatible programs on it. You'll only encounter more problems down the road. You may find a workaround for one snag, only to find another snag a few steps later.

The good news for me is that my upgrading of my old system worked, and I was able to load, activate and boot Encore.

It looks like clear sailing from here!

Brenda