ugh i can't even reinstall it now. i am getting the can't load skutil.dll error. there are 2 entries of the program in add/remove programs. the one labeled cyberlink powerdirector can be removed but there is another just called powerdirector that will not go away and gives me this error.

i even tried everything found here:
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/2776.page

Hi David,

It sounds as though you've got a corrupt installation file or a virus. The ntdll.dll file might be infected. So first off, do a virus scan of your system to see if that file is infected or corrupt. If so, remove the virus with your virus program. Problems with the ntdll.dll file are also associated with incompatible add-on programs to the Internet Explorer browser. You might want to disable any recent add-ons to see if this helps.

In order to get a clean uninstall, go to the Microsoft site and look for a program named Windows Install Cleanup. Look for all occurrences of PowerDirector when you use this program and *carefully* select them by clicking on each one, then hit the remove button. DO NOT select all. If you do this, you'll damage your PC and it won't run. If you don't want to attempt this, get a computer geek friend to do this for you.

Restart your computer and reinstall PD7.

See if this fixes your crashing problems.

yeah i tried all that...honestly it was faster for me to just backup and reinstall windows so thats what i did