suddenly Xara is crashing and failing to open when I launch???

Boot up in SAFE mode, tap F8 key gently and repetively until you see a menu come up (have to do this right after it boots up.)

When you see the menu come up, use the arrow keys to choose SAFE MODE and then it will load up Windows in the SAFE mode.

See if Xara Xtreme loads up then in SAFE mode. SAFE mode screen looks funny, but it will still work like Windows.

If it does, somewhere along the line, on of your startup routines has become corrupted and running things afoul.

off to try this james. thank you.

Okay, same thing happens in safe mode. hangs on the splash screen. What's weird is this happened "all of a sudden". I was using it on Thursday (the unlocked, DL-ed version) then bam, it started doing this. Only then did i install the disk version and continue to get the message.

Just so you know, I've uninstalled Xara from the disk, and reinstalled the DL-ed version, and THAT hangs also on the startup splash screen. (get the Microsoft error message and then xara shuts down).

Perhaps your Download version is broken. I would try the following steps:

1. Login as Administrator or a user with Administrator rights (important!)
2. Uninstall Xara Xtreme
3. Reboot Windows (a Reboot is sometimes necessary, because some deinstall programms needs to delete some files during the next restart)
4. After the Reboot: Login as Administrator or a user with Administrator rights
5. Open the Windows Explorer and go to the install directory of Xara Xtreme (usually c:\Program Files\Xara\Xara Xtreme) and rename it to "Xara Xtreme old"
6. Open the Windows Registry Editor (Windows Startmenu -> Execute: Type in the word "regedit" in the Dialogbox).
7. Within the Registry Editor go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Xara -> XaraXtreme".
8. Note: The next step, is a critical one! Be careful and don't destroy your complete Windows registry! Ok: Select the Registry Key "XaraXtreme" and delete the Key with all subkeys.
9. Perhaps, it's the best to do another reboot and start with a new, clean Windows session.
10. Download XaraXtreme again (perhaps your old download is corrupt)
11. Install XaraXtreme.
12. Look at XaraXtreme's splash screen and control the version number. If your version number is <2.0f, then you has to install the XaraXtreme 2.0f-Patch, too.

Regards,
Remi

Certainly sounds like a crunched registry problem :(

It could still be a memory problem. If Windows puts the program into a certain area of memory each time it starts Xara, and Xara creates an 'object' for internal use at a specified offset from where Windows puts Xara, and then Xara tries to access that memory during starting Xara, and that memory is crapped, you will get what you are specifying.

Other programs may not be affected in the same way. For instance, if the specified offset for another program contains a bitmap or other graphic object, you may have a hard time seeing the affected pixel, and the other program may run fine in all other aspects.

But the probability of this being the case is slim. The memory stick test I mentioned would rule out this possibility.

The reason it sounds like this may be the problem is the fact that it happens even if you reinstall Xara. Xara does not exhibit this problem on thousands of installations. That leads me to believe it is a hardware problem on your end, and the fact that it just suddenly happened only strengthens that suspicion.

It could also be your graphics card. Did you install anything lately that may have somehow hosed your graphics card drivers? Have you checked for the latest drivers? Have you ran any graphics diagnostics your card may have came with?

David

remi-
i have dl-ed it a number of times, each time running a reg cleaner and ashampoo 's win optimizer. so i don't think it's the dl-ed version. i am downloaded 'f' version too.

this is a brand new hp computer (3 months old)...so i doubt it'sthe memory, but of course it could be. DH is going to take the disk to work and try it there today. I am quite sure it will work (that is, I don't think the problem is the disk). That said, what i don't get is why after cleaning the registry, etc bedfore each re-install, it still hangs.

Maybe try going to this link:-

http://www.memtest.org/

Download it (scroll down quite a bit past the screenshots) and run it. That will check your RAM for you.

Dave

thanks dave. i will try that.

dave-
can you tell me which one i should dl to run on my computer? :confused: