EC9 Suite Waste of time and money

[Lax Pegasus]

I bought Easy Creator 9 Suite on 12-10-06. All I wanted it to do was make a music DVD to play in my home DVD player. Put in one DVD and have music going for hours. EC9 is supposed to have this capability. What a joke! It encodes the menu, but only makes it thru 1/3 of the music and errors out. Tells me EC9 has encountered an error and has to shut down. I also went as far as updating my video drivers (after un-installing EC9) and reinstalled EC9. Same results. So I tried the software on a different computer. Program didn't even want to install, let alone work. I am an experienced computer person. I have been trouble shooting this for days trying to get this program to work.

 

Here are the specs on the First system

 

AMD Atholon 64 3000+

ASUS Motherboard (VIA chipset)

1024 gig of RAM

ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9600XT

Creative Labs Audigy 2Z Platinum Pro

600 watt power supply

250 GIG Maxtor hard drive

LG DVD Burner and NEC DVD Burner

Win XP Pro SP1a (I won't install SP2 on this system, been down that spontaneous reboot road!)

 

Here are the Specs on the second system

1.3 Ghz AMD

ASUS Motherboard (VIA chipset)

1024 RAM

ATI All-In-Wonder 9000

Creative Labs Live! 5.1 pro

2 Maxtor Hard Drives (120 GIG and 60 GIG)

TDK CD burner

LG DVD Burner

Win XP Pro SP2 (program wouldn't even install properly on this system!)

[Lax Pegasus]

Install SP2 on the first machine. And, we have no clue what you mean by not installing properly on the second machine.

 

 

I've been down that "spontaneous reboot" road before after getting SP2 loaded on the first system. Nothing works then. Machine will just go into a loop. Start up hang... then reboot. The only way I can get anything to "Play Nice" is to keep SP2 Off that system completely!

 

And trying to get the EMC 9 Suite loaded on the second system that does have SP2 loaded was a disaster! Won't complete the install it errors out. Then when I reboot, the install tries to finish, but it can't find the file it needs to finish. (and before you state the obvious... I used the same install file, I downloaded directly from Roxio/Sonic on both systems) I'm not new to using computers. I have tried different trouble shooting methods. At this point I am glad I set "Restore Points". I had to use it to get 2nd system working properly again.

[barryware]

I've been down that "spontaneous reboot" road before after getting SP2 loaded on the first system. Nothing works then. Machine will just go into a loop. Start up hang... then reboot. The only way I can get anything to "Play Nice" is to keep SP2 Off that system completely!

 

To get your computer out of the reboot loop:

 

Go to Start - Settings - control panel - system.

 

Look at the tabs across the top of the system screen and select advanced. Towards the bottom of that screen you will see "startup & recovery". Click on settings. Uncheck the "automatically restart" box.

 

That will keep your rig from rebooting on an error. At least then you will see the error. You can probable find out what is causing it. Also check the event logs under computer management in the control panel. They do a pretty good job of letting you know what is going on.

 

There is nothing really wrong with SP2. However from time to time it will have a problem with a hardware driver. I spent hours once tracking a problem after and SP2 install and it turned out to be a third party mouse driver.. Go figure.

 

It would be best to get your OS up to the SP2 level. However I feel you pain.

 

You are certainly not the only one with EMC9 problems...

 

I initiated a support ticket the 26th of December. I have not heard a word. I have till the 10th to get my money back. If I don't hear anything from support, I will finish the refund process thingy by then.

 

Let me know how it turns out for you.

[gi7omy]

It's stated in the minimum system requirements

 

"...Minimum System Requirements:

• Microsoft® Windows Vista Home/Business/Ultimate, Windows XP Home/Pro/MCE (Service Pack 2), Windows XP Pro x64 Edition, Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4 or later)..."

[Lax Pegasus]

It's stated in the minimum system requirements

 

"...Minimum System Requirements:

• Microsoft® Windows Vista Home/Business/Ultimate, Windows XP Home/Pro/MCE (Service Pack 2), Windows XP Pro x64 Edition, Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4 or later)..."

 

 

I did read the Minimum System Requirements.

The part you missed on my post is that I TRIED to install it on a XP Pro Service Pack 2 system as well, and it didn't even install. It at least got thru the installation on the XP Pro SP1, it just didn't work after that. Read my Specs on BOTH of my systems.

[Lax Pegasus]

To get your computer out of the reboot loop:

 

Go to Start - Settings - control panel - system.

 

Look at the tabs across the top of the system screen and select advanced. Towards the bottom of that screen you will see "startup & recovery". Click on settings. Uncheck the "automatically restart" box.

 

That will keep your rig from rebooting on an error. At least then you will see the error. You can probable find out what is causing it. Also check the event logs under computer management in the control panel. They do a pretty good job of letting you know what is going on.

 

There is nothing really wrong with SP2. However from time to time it will have a problem with a hardware driver. I spent hours once tracking a problem after and SP2 install and it turned out to be a third party mouse driver.. Go figure.

 

It would be best to get your OS up to the SP2 level. However I feel you pain.

 

You are certainly not the only one with EMC9 problems...

 

I initiated a support ticket the 26th of December. I have not heard a word. I have till the 10th to get my money back. If I don't hear anything from support, I will finish the refund process thingy by then.

 

Let me know how it turns out for you.

 

I have requested my money back from Sonic/Roxio first request on 12-16-06 then the second request on the 1-4-07 (purchased on 12-10-06)... we'll see if I get my money back. Thanks for the other tip. The error reports I was getting re-guarding SP2 on the first system was blaming the video driver, I even tried updating the video driver at the time... no good results from that maneuver. I had to go into Safe Mode to install the new driver at all, but still had stability issues. (then I find out it had to do with the Firewall software and the video card driver, it was a combo whami). I found this out by checking the logs. Quite frankly, I was tired of standing on my head and spitting quarters to get anything to install, and or work! So I have discovered it is just easier to stay with SP1 with the first system. I even tried the 64 Bit XP (silly me) I thought the 64 bit OS would work better with the 64 bit CPU. Not a chance! I was desperate enough to try the Multimedia version of XP. Well this version disabled the remote that came with my video card. All the great functions and choices I had with my ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 XT series card were not available. No choice in recording format (MP3,AVI,WMVor MP4). I built this system to have those choices. I like having choices. So I will stick with XP SP1 for now. Maybe the new generation of 64 Bit CPU chips will be better. The first generation of AMD 64 Bit CPU sucks for SP2. I will have to wait till I can afford to build the next machine, to test the newer 64 bit chips and OS.

As for my music playing in my DVD Player.... I use my older Sony player instead of my newer Panasonic player for that now. Which was the only reason I updated my Easy CD Media Suite from 8 to 9 in the first place! I could use that money towards a newer version of Nero (7 or 8) instead. (hopefully Nero will be able to READ CD Text as well as it writes CD Text in the new version)!

[grandpabruce]

I did read the Minimum System Requirements.

The part you missed on my post is that I TRIED to install it on a XP Pro Service Pack 2 system as well, and it didn't even install. It at least got thru the installation on the XP Pro SP1, it just didn't work after that. Read my Specs on BOTH of my systems.

 

Install SP2 on the first machine. And, we have no clue what you mean by not installing properly on the second machine.