Helpful hints for a successful PT 8 LE Windows 7 64 Bit installation

[Chris Colley]

Hello,

Sorry if this has been covered in the past. I spent many hours today attempting to get a successful install of PT8 LE on my new Dell Studio 1558 laptop, with Windows 7 64 Bit. I previously had run a dual boot system, with both Windows 7 and Vista, on another laptop. On the Windows 7 side on the old laptop, I had what I remember to be pretty minor problems with the install or getting it stable, once I learned a few tips and tricks. When installing PT8 LE on my new laptop, I slowly began to remember them, hours later than I should have.

After doing a ton of research on the internet, to remember the various issues I had faced (Pro Tools loading hang ups on plug ins and DAE Loaded), I realized there was nothing that appears to be centralized, or at least is easy to find on any forum. I did all my searches via google. Hopefully this will change that, and hopefully my fellow laptop Windows 7 PT8 LE users will find this successful, as most of the posts I have read regarding this particular Operating System were not encouraging. I haven't done any significant testing at this point, but everything appears to be working fine, and is stable.

The tips:

1. It is extremely important that you get rid of Internet Explorer 8, as has been pointed out in several places. You will not have success with Pro Tools with this browser on your system. I'm assuming this is what causes the hang ups on loading. Go download your favorite alternative, and banish IE to the back burner.

2. While you are doing the install of PT8 (the version out of the box), it appears to be imperative that you have your wireless connection off in Windows 7. While I had read numerous things saying your wireless could not be on with Vista, I could run large mixes with the wireless on, with rarely any issues. However, in Windows 7, you can't even run an empty project without tons of problems. In short, until you need to grab something from the internet, just turn off your wireless connection ALWAYS when using Pro Tools in Windows 7 with a laptop.

3. After you have installed the 8.0 version, immediately go and grab the 8.0.3 version from the internet (preferably without your Mbox USB interface attached). This should be a relatively quick update, if it installs correctly. I believe this update took me less than 10 minutes, once done correctly. If you are going much longer than that, it probably is not working correctly.

4. Once 8.0.3 is installed, you will then notice that your interface will not light up when plugged into the USB port. At that point, you need to go to the Avid website to this page http://secure.digidesign.com/service...&localeCode=en and choose the one that applies to you.

Once all that's done, you should have an operational Pro Tools system, and can get to work!

Now that I gave the good, I'll give a story of the many very bad things that were happening during my several install attempts.

First of all, I had no budget for a system, and was attempting to basically get a cheap shell that can meet my needs. Everything appears to be exactly what I'm looking for out of this particular system. I began the install apparently seamlessly, but while I stepped away, I encountered the first problem. On a clean install, it should ask you to restart your system, however, it had already restarted itself, without asking me. It then proceed to get stuck after the log in screen for over an hour. I knew then that something was clearly wrong, and uninstalled whatever Pro Tools components had already been installed. Also, when the system rebooted after my hard reboot, it kept going to a blue screen of death (at least 3 times without making it into the main screen). So, I went into Safe Mode, and uninstalled some components of Pro Tools, and then my computer booted fine. I then installed it again, and at some point during the install my screen went black (lol). In this new system, I think the display hibernated, but I couldn't get it to wake up. So, rinse and repeat above. On the third try, I had a successful 8.0 install, or so I thought. However, that was when new problems cropped up. I began to get continuous blue screens of death and crashes, after the install was completed. Every time I rebooted, I would unplug the interface, and it would boot fine. So, I tried to plug the interface in after it had booted, and it immediately went to blue screen of death. So, obviously, the interface was having major problems. That was the point I began to remember all of the tips and tricks above. I uninstalled IE8, which was included with the new laptop. However, it didn't fix the blue screens of death. That was when I happened to remember about the wireless. I turned off wireless, and bingo, no more blue screens of death. After all of that, I ended up having completely successful installations of everything else I needed to put on the laptop, and I appear to be ready to get back to work.

I hope this ends up being very helpful to those going the unorthodox route of Windows 7 64 Bit. It will save you a lot of headaches, and wasted time, if these issues I encountered were truly the issues. I can clarify anything that doesn't make sense, or that anyone needs help with. Have a good one.

[ram130]

5. Disable DEP.

Great tips..