MediaLab freezes, running on Vista

[jarvis24]

The dxdiag.txt file indicates you are still running Vista on this machine. Is this the one that was supposed to have been converted back to XP? If not, do you have that one for comparison?

[EDONNY]

Actually, that dxdiag.txt file is from a Vista desktop machine. The laptop computer that had vista and was rebuilt with XP and was giving us problems, has since been rebuilt again back with Vista. Is everyone who is running medialab on Vista computers having this same problem? or is it just a few people?

[jarvis24]

Well at least that makes sense--I had never heard of anything like this on XP. We are working on a fix for this for Vista. In the mean time, all I can suggest is to either run it on XP or split the experiment as described above. As of this time I do not know the extent to which this is happening across Vista machines. I can at least say we have had many more requests for Vista authorization codes that we have had reports of this problem. But then that may simply be due to the fact that most experiments maybe be shorter than 150 items, or that the problem is not be reported by most users.

[KAS]

Another count for the Vista problem.

As described above. It seems to be happening in longer experiments (100+ trials). And yes, dividing the experiment into two or more smaller ones (with a restart of medialab) seems to help. Also, running on an XP machine avoids the whole problem. However, we've purchased a dozen laptops with vista to run subjects, and we can't reliably use them.

Any updates or news on this issue would be greatly appreciated

[KAS]

Bonus information:

Running all the medialab software (and Excel) in Windows XP (SP2) compatibility mode does not solve the problem.

[socialoaf]

I am having the exact same problem. Please let me know when there is a salution to this problem.

[jarvis24]

Thanks for the problem solving tip KAS, we can use lots of info like that to help rule stuff out. It almost certainly has to be memory related but it can't be as simple as a quantity issue. My guess is that it is related somehow to memory management in terms of how XP and Vista differ in this regard. Will let you know if we discover anything more useful. A prize for sure for anyone who can figure this one out--or at least find a contingency that leads us to a solution. Hmm.

Note also that we are working on a version of MediaLab that is fully Vista compliant. We did DirectRT first (which is in its 10th Vista beta as of Aug 19, 2008) because it simply would not run on Vista at all. Now that it seems to be running ok we are in the alpha stages of a Vista MediaLab which should be available for user beta testing within a few months (or earlier if all goes well). Fortunately, this issue and a couple problems with playing videos seems to be all the trouble we have seen so far with MediaLab on Vista.

See also...
www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php?t=704