UNless you're short on storage space on your C: drive, there aren't any reasons to worry about where things get installed. Generally speaking, I think it's better to keep video and other personal content on a separate drive so they won't be affected if the C: drive ever needs to be reformatted.

The bigger issue is the crashes that you've experienced. PD is certainly not flawless, but it doesn't typically crash when the PC it's installed on is solid. Please follow the steps in the Read Me Before Posting guide and share the DxDiag results. This will give us a better picture of how your system is configured and what kinds of updates or diagnostic steps may help.

Thank you for your reply. I believe I have 44% available space on my C drive which amounts to 101Gb free. I followed your instructions and included herein is the DxDiag.txt file I generated. Are you able to discern anything from this data?

I might add that when I purchased PowerDirector18 I had no previous experience of editing software whatsoever and simply learnt by trial and error which probably accounts for the problems I have - simply incorrect use of the software. I struggled to find answers to my questions in the software's help section which uses terminology I simply didn't understand. A received a strong tip through this forum to save individual chapters as Mp4 files and then string them together in a final mix. This alleviated a lot of the problems I was having at the time.

I guess I was concerned about having the program saved on the C drive and then having to retrieve my work from another drive and whether this was causing delays and hence the 'glitches' I mentioned. I'm pretty sure my troubles stem from the fact that my source media files were all over the place. For my next project, I intend to set up dedicated folders for everything.

Thanks again for your time,

regards, Graham

Thanks for the DxDiag results. There are some good clues in there and one oddity.

First off, there are some clear indications of system issues shown in the Windows Error reports (WER0-9) at the end of the results. Take a look at the steps that should resolve the WindowsWcpOtherFailure3 errors on this page. Follow the instructions exactly as listed and copy and paste the commands in bold so there won't be any typos.

Next, you can update the driver for your GTX 1660 SUPER. Your version is from last Sept while the current version was released last week. You can download it from here.

The oddity I mentioned is that the only PDR crash was shown is version 19.3.2730, which is clearly not PD18. I assume that it's the trial version of PD365 and you'll definitely want to uninstall that before you install the full version.

I think it's usually better to test out the full version because of the severe limitations in the trial verision, and if you're not happy with it you can get a full refund within 30 days.

Quote I have a SSD drive partitioned into C and D drives. Programs are saved to the C drive and data is stored on the D drive. I also have a 2Tb external drive for backup. As I understand it, the PD software should be on C drive in the Programs folder.

You don't, you have a Western Digital WD10EZEX which is a 1TB rotating mechanical SATA drive for D: and you have a Western Digital WDS250G1B0A which is a 250GB Blue SATA SSD for C:. D is not a part of C device, totally separate.

Quote I guess I was concerned about having the program saved on the C drive and then having to retrieve my work from another drive and whether this was causing delays and hence the 'glitches' I mentioned. I'm pretty sure my troubles stem from the fact that my source media files were all over the place. For my next project, I intend to set up dedicated folders for everything.

Good to have a proper filing system that suites you, but having files spread all over is not a reason for PD 'glitches' and organization won't improve the 'glitches'.

Jeff

As opto indicated, location is a personal preference, but there are considerations that impact it. Such as:

• don't overfill your drives - keep usage of any one below 75%, particularly C, or the files on it will be fragmented, and the OS will spend a lot of time swapping the pagefile into and out of RAM; both things that seriously impact on performance.


• try to keep C just for the OS. This is the most used drive on the computer and if anything happens to it (corrupted by malware/device failure) you will have to either replace it or re-format it and then restore from backups (at best) or do a complete new install - including the software apps.


• locate your software and data on separate drives from C. Particularly keep the data separate from the editor program that uses it; you may find the the same data is useful in several applications, and if you replace the editor with a new version, typically the un-install of the old version will remove all the older app folders which may include the data files.


• SSD's are still typically used for the C drive - if you have a desktop with additional drives they are commonly hard drives and have a small but measureable disk access delay. Putting the OS on C and having any apps and data on physically separate drives minmises that access delay and improves the performance of the computer considerably. Example: I had HDD's for C and software and data drives, 12 logical partitions on 4 physical HDD in all. A regular AV scan using a package (AVG) of this configuration took over an hour. Just replacing the C drive with an SSD immediately halved that, to just over 30 minutes.


• this sort of improvement would be apparent in tasks that are intensive (rendering) and usually time consuming, but it affects the whole PC in the same way for shorter duration activities: like edits.


• lastly, having your programs, including the OS, on separate drives makes backup routines easier to do: backup by partitions (drives) means that each one is modular and re-usable by restoration in the same way.

Thank you for your help Optodata, it is appreciated immensely. Didn't have any luck with the error resolve issue. The instructions (per Gerry CJ Cornell) said to use keyboard shortcut WIN + X and click COMMAND PROMPT (ADMIN) on the dropdown menu. This seems to be from an older version of windows maybe? I believe the command prompt on my system (Windows10) appears by clicking on the word 'Run'. When I type 'cd\' into the prompt then Enter, it tells me that Windows can't find it and I got no further.

I updated the video card driver successfully however so look forward to seeing if it makes any difference.

Yes, I did download the trial version of 365 to have a look at it but also tried to download the PowerDirector19 version as well because I thought it would be a free upgrade for owners of the 18 version (D'oh!). I ended up with versions here there and everywhere so I deleted everything but my original 18 version to get back to square one (you can tell by now that I haven't got a clue what I'm doing).

The general advice seems to be to move all my software except the OS off my C drive but that is where Windows has the default 'Progams' folder with everything in it and I am wary about shifting stuff around in case it affects other things unknowingly. One thing I have noticed however is the duplication of the Cyberlink folder which appears twice in my menu (see attachments). Maybe I have a conflict happening with two instances of the software - not sure which one I should be using and how I ended up with two.

Thanks again for your help and your time.

Hi Jeff and thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts about my problem. You are quite correct about my setup. When I checked my purchase receipt I realised that I had given out wrong information about my drives. Do you think it is worth replacing the rotating D drive (data only) with an SSD drive? Would this make noticeable improvements or would they be minimal and not worth it?

Cheers, Graham

Thanks for your in-depth insights David.

• My C drive is a touch over half full with 130Gb used and 100Gb free so should be OK?
  
  


• Keeping C drive just for the OS is something I would need an expert to manage for me I think. I would probably kill the computer.
  
  


• "Keeping the software and data on separate drives" - this is the area where I want to improve. As you can see in the attachments included in my earlier reply, I have stuff all over the place and I think I need to migrate a lot of stuff off of C drive and onto D drive. Windows has the default Programs folder on C drive so I thought that was the place for software.
  
  


• SSD vs HDD - is it worth replacing my D drive (which is a rotating HDD) with an SSD?
  
  


• I have never attempted a backup and don't know how but I should probably do a pile of housekeeping before I try it.
  
  Thanks again for the advice, greatly appreciated.

Quote Hi Jeff and thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts about my problem. You are quite correct about my setup. When I checked my purchase receipt I realised that I had given out wrong information about my drives. Do you think it is worth replacing the rotating D drive (data only) with an SSD drive? Would this make noticeable improvements or would they be minimal and not worth it?

Cheers, Graham

If your source video is basic compressed H.264 that you get from most common consumer cameras and your timeline consists of several video tracks, you won't notice any significant difference. Minor stuff, like the audio waveform may appear on a very long video file when first dropped into the timeline a few seconds earlier on a SSD.

Basically, no need to have SSD's for compressed H.264 video storage for editing and/or producing. SSD's are extremely beneficial for OS/Apps.

Whatever you do, don't defrag your SSD as was mentioned for improvements. SSD store data in a highly fragmented scheme, that's how they work. Windows10 even smarter than that, it won't schedule a defrag on your SSD but it will on your 1TB mechanical drive. It will however trim your SSD once/month by default.

Jeff

You put applications onto an alternative drive at install time. In the installer, the custom option usually presents a choice of drives and folders for that. If the app is already installed, don't move it (registry entires are tied to this location as part of the original install process): 2 choices - live with it, or un-install and clean up the registry to remove any unlinked entries, then re-install in a custom folder on a non-C drive. Make sure there is enough space for it there.
Some applications will not offer a custom choice, and PD plug-ins (prodad etc) are an example - they just blast their way onto C. Not much you can do about that, even if you have selected a custom install.

Quote Thanks for the DxDiag results. There are some good clues in there and one oddity.

First off, there are some clear indications of system issues shown in the Windows Error reports (WER0-9) at the end of the results. Take a look at the steps that should resolve the WindowsWcpOtherFailure3 errors on this page. Follow the instructions exactly as listed and copy and paste the commands in bold so there won't be any typos.

Next, you can update the driver for your GTX 1660 SUPER. Your version is from last Sept while the current version was released last week. You can download it from here.

The oddity I mentioned is that the only PDR crash was shown is version 19.3.2730, which is clearly not PD18. I assume that it's the trial version of PD365 and you'll definitely want to uninstall that before you install the full version.

I think it's usually better to test out the full version because of the severe limitations in the trial verision, and if you're not happy with it you can get a full refund within 30 days.

Hi again Optodata, OK I got a little further today by typing 'CMD' instead of 'cd\' and then typing 'sfc /scannow' and hitting Enter. The computer is told me I must be an administrator running a console session in order to use the sfc facility. After googling how to do it, I changed my settings to make me an administrator and ran a console session. It found no errors? I then ran the DISM cleanup facility anyway and finally did another DXDiag. I have attached the txt file here. Seems I still have a bunch of errors somewhere.

Thanks, Graham

Quote The computer is telling me I must be an administrator running a console session in order to use the sfc facility. Is there a way of me enabling this so I can do the scan? (see attachment)

After you type cmd in the search box, right mouse click on the Command Prompt icon and select Run as Administrator. You will get the elevated prompt necessary to do the scan suggested.

Quote

After you type cmd in the search box, right mouse click on the Command Prompt icon and select Run as Administrator. You will get the elevated prompt necessary to do the scan suggested.

Thanks Tomasc, that's a much simpler way of getting there than the way I was doing it. Cheers!

Graham.

Quote Hi again Optodata, OK I got a little further today by typing 'CMD' instead of 'cd\' and then typing 'sfc /scannow' and hitting Enter. ...

I'm glad you got it figured out. I see that you did get the new nVidia driver installed, but there are some new errors regarding "ipoint.exe" which is the IntelliMouse driver, and new crashes relating to "StoreAgentScanForUpdatesFailure0"

The most recent crash was a PD component called PDHanumanSvr.exe, so it seems like there may still be some issues affecting PD.

Since the SFC & DISM commands didn't find any problems you may want to consider having your system serviced. The two additional steps that might fully resolve the problems would be to uninstall PD then create a brand new user profile and install PD from there; or use the Reset this PC option.

You could do one or both of these on your own, but it might be better to have a pro or tech-savvy friend do them in case anything unexpected happens.

Quote

I'm glad you got it figured out. I see that you did get the new nVidia driver installed, but there are some new errors regarding "ipoint.exe" which is the IntelliMouse driver, and new crashes relating to "StoreAgentScanForUpdatesFailure0"

The most recent crash was a PD component called PDHanumanSvr.exe, so it seems like there may still be some issues affecting PD.

Since the SFC & DISM commands didn't find any problems you may want to consider having your system serviced. The two additional steps that might fully resolve the problems would be to uninstall PD then create a brand new user profile and install PD from there; or use the Reset this PC option.

You could do one or both of these on your own, but it might be better to have a pro or tech-savvy friend do them in case anything unexpected happens.

Last question I promise,

After researching the Reset option I don't think that is for me - way too hard reinstalling all my software again. I'm thinking maybe just uninstall PD18, do any housekeeping necessary and then install the 365 version. Will this get things back in shape and deal with the errors you found with the DXDiag.txt? Will I need to do a regclean after the uninstall before installing the new version? If so, I believe Windows10 can do this without the need for additional software but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I'm about to take part in a 48hour film project and have been asked to do the editing so I really want my system to be up to scratch, hence the reason for upgrading to 365. I'm just worried that the errors you found in PD18 will carry over to the 365 version and I'll be in the same boat.

I would appreciate your thoughts on these issues.

gratefully, Graham

It's your call as to what's too hard or not, but given that you've run the two most helpful diagnostic commands and PD18 still crashed, it's very likely that PD365 will experience the same issues. That's why I recommended the above two options.

Creating a new user profile is straightforward and won't do any harm. You can also simply delete it if it doesn't change anything. If PD18/365 runs better when you're logged in to that account, you can merge your old files and settings into the new account. There are many online articles showing how to do that.

In the worst case, doing a reset will let you keep all your personal documents and files, but yes, it will require you to re-install all your apps. The good news is that while it can be time consuming, you will end up with a very solid installation where you aren't likely to have any technical issues like these for quite a while.

Either way, whenever and however you get a smoother running system, I strongly encourage you to make regular system backups so you'll be able to simply restore your system to an earlier point in time (before the problems started) and you won't need to reinstall all your programs again.

There are free and paid apps that do this, and I hope you'll take my advice seriously. I've been working with Windows since v2.0.3 back in 1988, and I learned the hard way how having a recent full system backup can save you from uncountable hours of work and endless frustration.

Quote It's your call as to what's too hard or not, but given that you've run the two most helpful diagnostic commands and PD18 still crashed, it's very likely that PD365 will experience the same issues. That's why I recommended the above two options.

Creating a new user profile is straightforward and won't do any harm. You can also simply delete it if it doesn't change anything. If PD18/365 runs better when you're logged in to that account, you can merge your old files and settings into the new account. There are many online articles showing how to do that.

In the worst case, doing a reset will let you keep all your personal documents and files, but yes, it will require you to re-install all your apps. The good news is that while it can be time consuming, you will end up with a very solid installation where you aren't likely to have any technical issues like these for quite a while.

Either way, whenever and however you get a smoother running system, I strongly encourage you to make regular system backups so you'll be able to simply restore your system to an earlier point in time (before the problems started) and you won't need to reinstall all your programs again.

There are free and paid apps that do this, and I hope you'll take my advice seriously. I've been working with Windows since v2.0.3 back in 1988, and I learned the hard way how having a recent full system backup can save you from uncountable hours of work and endless frustration.

I think I have no option but to take my PC to someone who knows what they're doing. I re-ran the DXDiag and DISM scan and both told me there are no errors and yet errors appear on the log files? Its got me beat. I tracked down the DISM.log file and there lots of warnings and errors all through it (Attached here). Once I'm confident that the system is working as it should withour errors and warnings etc, I will sort out the backup side of things. Thanks again for your help with this.

Cheers, Graham

Quote I re-ran the DXDiag and DISM scan and both told me there are no errors and yet errors appear on the log files?

Those WER entries at the end of the DxDiag test are simply the last 10 errors that Windows logged. They'll never go away and can only be overwitten by newer crashes, so please don't worry about them.

The main thing is that SFC and DISM both report clean results, and since PD18 still isn't running without crashing I think it's worth having your system checked out.

Reviewing this thread, Diri made a comment re backups (he did not know how to do it) that hasn't been addressed.
Backups are basically copies of the PC contents, used when things go bad to restore the status quo as of the time of backup. There are 3rd party programs to do that, or there is a facility in windows to do it.
A backup copy will be the same size as the backed up data, but since PC's can have a lot of programs, data etc on them, most backup software offers a facility to compress the backup file. The medium you backup to also needs to be of sufficient size to store the resulting backup file. The backup software also has/should have a recover feature that allows you to recover using the backup file, and generally a means of separately booting (eg a boot from CD feature) to the recovery program. That type of facility is essential - if your C drive is corrupted, a recovery method that relies on C is useless.
Depending on the backup software you use, you can:

• backup a single file, a folder (of files), a whole disk partition (drive) or the entire PC in one operation.


• run a schedule to perform the backup


• backup to different devices.


• backups are generally recommended to be done on a regular cycle - how regular depends on how much data you have and how often that data changes. You might for example backup the entire PC once a quarter and selected drives like C more regularly (once a week? or once a month).


• there is plenty of material on backing up obtainable by google searching - maybe more than you think.


• once you have a regular backup cycle going - expect that it may be years before there is any need for it: no need to store everything - just the backups for the last year?? but when something fails/goes wrong, you will thank your lucky stars that you have a the means to recover from it.


• keep a copy of all backups on a device that is NOT normally attached to the PC: if you are ever ransomeware attacked, these off-line stores are your means to recover without paying a ransom. In this latter case, disconnect the affected PC from the internet before you start (prevents re-infection while you do the recovery), connect the off-line backup store and then boot from the recovery CD to a) re-format the affected drives, which will probably be every one except the external backup store, and then b) recover the drive contents from the backup files on the backup recovery store.

How I do it;

• I use the Acronis True Image software: determined years ago by it's ability to boot from CD to the recovery program. The recovery CD has a built-in linux OS, so a recovery is independant of the OS on the PC itself. Every new TI version comes with a pre-compiled recovery disk in an iso format that you just have to burn to disk to use.


• I have 12 active and logical drives on my PC, content on each one determined by type of data (one drive for music, one for video, one for application programs like PD etc). Each one is backed up on a regular cycle.

I've had cause to use backups to

• recover from a corrupted file (recovering the whole drive was easier than trying to find and recover the affected file)


• recover from a failed drive (replace the relevant HDD unit, re-start and restore the partitions on it from backup files); and


• when upgrading a drive - eg replace an HDD with an SSD - as before, replace the affected unit and recover the drive content using backup files.

If this sounds to complex to start, see your local PC shop or technician for advice on getting going. But once the routine is established, it really is easy.