Driver: Directcd Disabled

[justphilip]

I am experiencing a start up message "Driver is blocked due to compatibility issues." Vista Windows gives the following resolution message

"DirectCD has been blocked from running because it might prevent your computer from starting correctly in the future."

 

Your version of DirectCD isn't compatible with this version of Windows.

 

My operating system is Vista DirectX Version 10 using an Intel 2 core 6400 @ 2.13Ghz.

 

I have a feeling some other software that I installed created this problem and I am not sure how DirectCD is used in Creator 2012 so I am uncertain as to what remedy I should seek. TIA JP

Edited August 18, 2012 by justphilip

[Brendon]

Hi Justphilip,

 

DirectCD isn't involved in Creator 2012. The last version of that was in Easy Media Creator 9, back around 2007. Direct CD version 9 is Vista compatible, so you must have an even earlier version.

 

What other Adaptec/Roxio/Sonic software do you have installed, or what did you install just prior to seeing this problem?

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

I had an early version of Roxio (pre 2005 Win95) that I used to copy files to CD; there was a compatibility problem (when migrating to Win98?) so I bought a Memorex/Nero product for backups. I am currently at Nero 7 (circa 2007 when upgraded to Win XP) but its seldom used. I also have Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus as well as Creator 2012. The only old Roxio tool I might be using is the CD/DVD disk labeler. JP

Edited August 21, 2012 by justphilip

[bimicher]

I had an early version of Roxio (pre 2005 Win95) that I used to copy files to CD; there was a compatibility problem (when migrating to Win98?) so I bought a Memorex/Nero product for backups. I am currently at Nero 7 (circa 2007 when upgraded to Win XP) but its seldom used. I also have Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3 Plus as well as Creator 2012. The only old Roxio tool I might be using is the CD/DVD disk labeler. JP

 

You say you have an old Roxio tool (CD/DVD labeller). You must have an old version of Roxio installed on your system then. What version is that?

[Brendon]

Justphilip,

 

Okay it's quite clear that however you got the DirectCD onto your system,

[1] you don't use it

[2] Creator 2012 didn't put it there

[3] it's quite safe to remove it or stop it trying to load, and it won't affect your old disc labeler..

 

If Vista is preventing it loading, the only bad thing it's doing is unsettling you with the warning notice. Since DirectCD is an independent module, it should have its own entry in the Control Panel > Add/remove programs, and might also have its own entry in the 'Run' part of the registry.

 

My first suggestion is for you to see if it's in the 'Add/Remove programs' list, and if so then remove it using the control panel. That will uninstall it completely.

 

If you can't find it there, my second suggestion is to run MSCONFIG.EXE and look for DirectCD in the Startup tab. If you find it, uncheck the box alongside it, select 'Selective Startup' in the General tab and then click OK to get out of msconfig. While not removing the program that should stop it from trying to start, and may avoid your annoying error.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

I followed the removal instruction: went to install list of program via the control panel - Direct CD not found to uninstall. I then started msconfig.exe and looked for it in the start up list - not found. I did a selective startup thinking it might have been deselected in the past; no such luck! I got the same message. I also have a phantom 'Adobe Flash install' (installed about three times now) that keeps comming up with each restart. Where could thes buggers be hiding? It is impossibe for me to track the version number of the Roxio software I had, it was bundeled with the Memorex backup software that I purchased and have since ceased to use (2005-6 time frame - I am relying on my maintenace log book which is a bit sketchy on that Roxio product.). TIA

Edited August 24, 2012 by justphilip

[Brendon]

Ho! They're not making it simple for you, are they!

 

Okay, since it's talking about DirectCD the software has to be coming from Easy CD Creator 5 or earlier, since 6 and 7 have 'Drag-to-Disc' instead.

 

If the error message hasn't mentioned which driver it's complaining about, you might have to try to find the pieces and chop them out individually.

In case it's some help in my XP system with ECDC 5, DirectCD lives in the folder C:\Program Files\Roxio\DirectCD.

The main executable is Directcd.exe and it's about 600KB. I can list the other files in that directory if you need.

 

As far as I can guess, the main driver which runs this version is cdralw2k.sys, which is found in the \Windows\System32\Drivers folder on my machine. If you can't ascertain which driver is causing the problem but you can find cdralw2k.sys, it would be worth the effort to rename that file - perhaps to cdralw2k.old - and see if that relieves the error condition. [i suggest renaming rather than deleting it, so you can reverse the action if you need to.]

 

I hope this might help you.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

1. I searched the program files ‘C:\Program Files\Roxio\DirectCD’ did not find any reference to DirectCD.What surprised me is that I found three Roxio Folders with the following properties: (a) ‘Roxio’ ( Roxio 2012 both were created on 7 May 2012 and© ‘Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3’ which was created on 19 Apr 2012.2. File ‘cdralw2k.sys’ was found in Folder ‘c:\Program Files\Roxio\PhotoShow\Video\PrimoSD’It was last accessed 7 May 2012, it has Digital Signature ‘Sonic Solutions’ copyrighted 1994 – 2005 and last modified 25 Sep 2010.In that all three folders were created in 2012, I am at a lost as to the correct direction to go especially since (a) and ( would appear to have been created during the Creatoe 2012 install.Are we having fun yet? TIA JP

Edited August 25, 2012 by justphilip

[bimicher]

1. I searched the program files ‘C:\Program Files\Roxio\DirectCD’ did not find any reference to DirectCD.

What surprised me is that I found three Roxio Folders with the following properties: (a) ‘Roxio’ ( Roxio 2012 both were created on 7 May 2012 and

© ‘Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3’ which was created on 19 Apr 2012.

 

2. File ‘cdralw2k.sys’ was found in Folder ‘c:\Program Files\Roxio\PhotoShow\Video\PrimoSD’

It was last accessed 7 May 2012, it has Digital Signature ‘Sonic Solutions’ copyrighted 1994 – 2005 and last modified 25 Sep 2010.

 

In that all three folders were created in 2012, I am at a lost as to the correct direction to go especially since (a) and ( were appear to have been created

during the Creatoe 2012 install.

 

Are we having fun yet? TIA JP

 

DirectCD have nothing at all to do with Roxio Creator 2012, Vhs to DVD 3 or Roxio PhotoShow..

 

You seem to have all sorts of remnants from previous install/uninstalls which are screwing up your system

Edited August 25, 2012 by myguggi

[Brendon]

1. I searched the program files ‘C:\Program Files\Roxio\DirectCD’ did not find any reference to DirectCD.What surprised me is that I found three Roxio Folders with the following properties: (a) ‘Roxio’ ( Roxio 2012 both were created on 7 May 2012 and© ‘Roxio Easy VHS to DVD 3’ which was created on 19 Apr 2012.2. File ‘cdralw2k.sys’ was found in Folder ‘c:\Program Files\Roxio\PhotoShow\Video\PrimoSD’It was last accessed 7 May 2012, it has Digital Signature ‘Sonic Solutions’ copyrighted 1994 – 2005 and last modified 25 Sep 2010.In that all three folders were created in 2012, I am at a lost as to the correct direction to go especially since (a) and ( would appear to have been created during the Creatoe 2012 install.Are we having fun yet? TIA JP

 

Having fun? It's almost enough to start tearing your hair out. Good thing I have a crew cut.

 

Okay, here's some interesting factoids. Let's see if we can stitch them together to make sense.

[1] Creator 2012 normally only has a BackOnTrack folder in C:\Program Files\Roxio, at least in the installs I've done in XP and Windows 7.

It doesn't have a Photoshow folder. Where did Photoshow come from? Did you install that separately?

 

[2] Easy CD Creator Version 5 has the last DirectCD I can find, and its cdralw2k.sys is Copyright Roxio 2001-2002. Where did your file, Copyright Sonic 1994-2005 come from? Have you installed other CD/DVD writing programs not yet mentioned?

 

[3] In any event, when I did a custom install of ECDC5 in a virgin XP a short while ago and installed only DirectCD out of the menu, there were three drivers installed. They were Cdr4_2k, Cdralw2k and pwd_2k. They were all uninstalled when I uninstalled DirectCD again.

 

 

May I suggest you search for CDR4*.* Cdralw*.* and pwd*.* files on your machine. The wildcards are because the software installed different versions [2k, XP, etc] on different Operating Systems. I think one of these is likely to be the driver your system is complaining about. If you find them, rename them and see if the problem stops.

 

If this doesn't get the offending driver,

-run REGEDIT

-search for upperfilters

-find the folder which contains upperfilters and lowerfilters like my screen capture

-tell me the names in those filters.

 

 

 

I'm sorry this is so complex, but your system seems to be very complex. Did you upgrade to Win98 and then to Vista, rather than wiping the drive before you installed the new Operating System?

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

In my search for a way to open MS 'Picture It' files (*.mix), I acquired pgms CDRoller, RegCur Pro, Driver Manager, and XnView programs. The interesting thing is that an archieved backup copy of folder 'Roxio" dated 6 Mar 2011 only contains Express Labler 3 folder. Now it has no Express Labler 3 but in its place is Photoshow, etc. I am wondering when I used CDRoller to recover a CD of old photos that the problem occured then. My log references on that follows:

 

Rcovered CD (dated 26 Nov 2000) contents: Autorun and application program Udfrinst (Roxio UDF Reader for windows 95/NT). Properties state for Udfrinst that it is compatible with XP and then says DirectCD is a product name copyright by Roxio Application Vwersion 5.0.0.141.

 

If I recovered an old Roxio pgm in the 'Roxio' Folder, would it be safe to recover that file from my archieve? Or, should I pursue your further search for DirectCD fragments? TIA JP

[justphilip]

On fragments search found: cdralw2k.sys in drivers(c:\windows\system32) and PrimoSDK(c:\Program files\Roxio\PhotoShow\Video); cdralw2k.64 also under Video. No find on pwd*.*

Found cdr4 inf(c:\windows), cd4x86 catroot(c:\windows\system32) and cdr4_xp.sys drivers(c:\windows\system32). Data wise and usable programs Migrated from Win 95 ==> Win98 ==> XP ==> Vista. TIA JP

[Brendon]

Goodness, things just got even more complicated! There may be udfrdr, and is your Operating System 64-bit too?

 

When DirectCD formats a disc it makes the main area a UDF volume and leaves a small area in CDFS.

 

If you put the disc into a machine which has the software installed to read the UDF volume you see the 'contents' of the disc, otherwise your machine will only see the small area and the disc will offer to install a UDF Reader. You may have the Win 95 UDF reader squeezed in there somehow.

 

Unless we can get Vista to tell us the name of the driver it's protesting about, I think you should do the "Run REGEDIT. . ." thing from Post #10. Hopefully the errant driver will stand out.

 

Brendon

[justphilip]

Brendon after a novice search of opening each folder to its lowest denominator, my son-in-law asked why I didn't do a search! Using the search tool, I finally found the upperfilters and the lowerfilters locations.

 

Lowerfilter:

Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINR > SYSTEM > Controlset001 > Control > Class > {36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8856-444553540000} > 034

Content LowerFilters REG_MULTI_SZ dot4ursb

 

UpperFilters

Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINR > SYSTEM > Controlset001 > Control > Class > {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Content LowerFilters REG_MULTI_SZ GEARAspiWDM

 

Is it normal to have folders in the registry that will not open to show their contents?

 

TIA JP

[Brendon]

Sorry JP, I think I wasn't detailed enough. Here's my registry screen-shot again.

 

 

You will have seen that there are many {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} folders or keys in that display. As you highlight each one moving up or down the list, you'll see that the values in (Default) and Class change as you move from key to key. That's the area I've drawn a red rectangle around.

 

The one we want has a (default) value of "DVD/CDROM drives". [Others are Computer, Disk drives, Display adaptors etc - ignore them please.]

 

Can you tell/show me what filters are listed in that particular key, please?

 

The dot4usb driver you show is for an HP printer, and the GEARAspiWDM driver is from Gear or iTunes software, I think.

 

 

Your other question, the keys in the registry are represented as folders by the Windows registry editor. If the 'folder' has a little plus sign it means the key has subkeys, but in general if you click on a key in the left pane of the Regedit window you should see the values of its contents appear in the right pane. Even if it's otherwise empty, it should show a (Default) value in the right pane.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

Hi Brendon, Sorry to be such a headache for you!

Under Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINR > SYSTEM > Controlset001 > Control > Class > {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Default REG_SZ DVD/CD-ROM DRIVES

Class REG_SZ CDROM

ClassDesc REG_SZ @%SystemRoot%\System32\StorProp.dll,-17001

EnumPropPages... REG_SZ storprop.dll,DvdPropPageProvider

IconPath REG_MULTI_SZ %SystemRoot%\System32\images.ddl,-30

Installer32 REG_SZ storprop.ddl,DvdClassInstaller

LowerFilters REG_MULTI_SZ PxHelp20

NoInstallClass REG_SZ 1

SilentInstall REG_SZ 1

UpperFilters REG_MULTI_SZ GEARAspiWDM

 

Is this what we need to find? TIA

[Brendon]

Hi Brendon, Sorry to be such a headache for you!

I don't mind, JP. It's a challenge.

 

Okay, you got the right registry key and there are no DirectCD drivers being called through there. PXHelp20 is a standard Roxio filter, and the other is a GEAR/iTunes one. There shouldn't be any problems there.

 

There should be some error log available in Vista to identify the filename of the driver it's blocking, but I have religiously avoided Vista swo I don't know it. For the moment we'll have to try another way.

 

There are many different ways a program can be called at Windows startup, but one of the easiest ways for the non-Geek to check them all at once is a free, safe, small program called RegSeeker. It's less than half a MB in size, and available here: http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm There are no nasties or surprises on their page, either.

 

If you run RegSeeker and click on the 'Startup Entries' button you'll be shown a list of programs which are started each time Windows starts. Just look at them and see if you can find an entry which calls Direct CD, then Quit RegSeeker and come back to tell me what you found.

 

Here's the one for the machine I'm on at the moment. I check this regularly to make sure nothing nasty has crept in.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

Hi Brendon,

Since the errant driver message references Roxio and for the lack of any other clue, could the following entry be the one?

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Software\Microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\Run

RoxioWatchTray "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Roxio Shared\13.0\SharedCom\RoxWatchTray13.exe

TIA JP

[Brendon]

No, that's part of Creator 2012. The error messages in your first post refer to Direct CD which is a way lot different.

 

Did you have any luck peeping in there with RegSeeker for Direct CD?

 

Brendon

[justphilip]

Sorry Brendon, nothing that contained 'Direct CD' verbage or otherwise look suspect, see attached word doc. You mentioned Vista Logs, is this the next step? JP

Startup Entries.doc

[Brendon]

You have a very busy startup - 20 more entries than I have But no, nothing suspicious in there at all.

 

If you're still getting that annoying error message at startup I guess we need to look at system error logs. I don't know much about Vista, so I'll do some swot and get back to you later with [i hope] some suggestions.

 

Brendon

[justphilip]

Thanks Brendon! JP

[Brendon]

Okay Philip,

 

It seems that Vista has an error log similar to the one my XP has.

 

Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools >Event Viewer. The event Viewer shows you three categories of errors, Application; Security; and System. I think the log where this error of yours should show is 'System', although it might appear in 'Application'

 

If the error shows every time you start Windows, you could clear out all the logs and then restart Windows. After the error shows, go view those logs and look for one with a red Error flag. I don't have any errors to demonstrate to you, only a Warning one. I think the error one is a red circle with a cross in it.

 

 

If you double-click an entry, a box opens to give you more info about the log entry. e.g.

 

 

If you have cleared your logs then the number of entries you have to sift through will be greatly reduced.

Go through the error entries to see if you can find one referring to DirectCD, and come back here with it.

 

To do that initial clearing of logs, highlight a category, then go to Action on the top toolbar, and 'Clear all Events'. You get the option to save the log before you clear, but I didn't worry about that.

 

Regards,

Brendon

[justphilip]

Hi Brendon,

I think we may have found somethin, see attached Word document. Hopefully the next step is a cleanup - perhaps eliminating startup entries - any danger in deleting entries? TIA JP

System Error Log errors via Event Viewer.doc

[Jim_Hardin]

(Here is your log as pictures

)

 

 

 

[justphilip]

Hi Brendon, I can't make heads or tails of this information. It appears to be conflicting data; could it be the result of an Internet Explorer crash or the result of a vrus? It looks like pieces of Dell Sales ad. I'm not aware of any Dell software that should be on my machine. More than that the Win7 scares me! Any sugestions? TIA JP