[Mark W]

Hello NotationUser,

Yes! Thanks for writing up that KnowledgeBase article!

I must show your article here so that other Notation users can see what a great KB article you wrote:

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Notation stalls/freezes when I load a file - Acer OEM Vista64 - other Acer OEM Windows systems


The following problem and fix has beed found by a user running Notation Software on an Acer Vista 64 OEM installation on a Acer X1700 PC, Q8200 cpu, 4GB ram.

Also this problem and fix has been verified on this particular Acer OEM Vista64 system only it might apply to other Acer OEM Windows installations and systems too.


If you encounter the problem that Notation Software stalls/freezes when running for the very first time after system (re-)boot but all works fine after you have canceled and restarted Notation Software in the same session, then this might be related to an interference/incompatibility with Acer OEM Vista software installation and a process named "PCMMediaSharing.exe".



A) Verify the issue
If you run Vista64 Acer OEM, please check first if "PCMMediaSharing.exe" is running on your system.

1) To open the Windows task manager, right click on the taskbar and choose task manager from the context popup menu.
2) Click on the tab "processes" and search for "PCMMediaSharing.exe". To easier find that, sort the process list by name via clicking on the names header column.


B) Check if the fix is working
If you find "PCMMediaSharing.exe" running on your Acer system you can try the following fix:

3) Reboot your machine
4) Do NOT run Notation software before you have eliminated "PCMMediaSharing.exe".
5) Open the task manager again as described in steps 1-2) and locate "PCMMediaSharing.exe".
6) Right click on it and choose "terminate process" or "terminate process structure".
7) Check if "PCMMediaSharing.exe" disappears from the list.
8) Close task manager (optional step).
9) Start Notation Software and check if loading files work proper now.

Before you continue please check this:

10) If this procedure succeded and fixed the problem with Notation Software, make sure you don't use other ACER software that needs "PCMMediaSharing.exe" services.


C) Apply fix permanently
If you have checked 10) you can permanently disable "PCMMediaSharing.exe" from loading at boottime. If this fix causes any problems you can easily reactivate "PCMMediaSharing.exe" again if necessary...

11) Run "msconfig" - simply type this in the Vista search line on the bottom of Vista start menu.
12) Confirm security request.
13) A system configuration dialog opens.
14) Click tab "systemstart".
15) Remove check at entry "PCMMediaSharing.exe".
16) Confirm dialog (click OK button).
17) Reboot Vista.

After reboot loading files in Notation Software should work now even witht the first run.
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Wow, I'm impressed with your work here, NotationUser!

Cheers
-- Mark