COM Surrogate error

UPSLynx

As Doc Holiday said on his deathbed at the end of Tombstone: "I'll be damned, this is funny."

This is the first cry for halp I've posted on these forums. Don't hold it against me.

As most of you are aware from my editing fiasco last night, I'm having a crippling media error in Windows 7. Whenever I browse to a folder that contains video, It throws an error that says 'COM Surrogate has stopped working'. It then proceeds to crash Windows explorer, and that's that. The process repeats continually until I get away from media files.

This is most likely a problem caused by an old codec. At some point, while reinstalling all of my old stand-by programs, I installed something that borked the COM surrogate. I suspect it's either Ahead Nero (which many google searches point to) or Adobe Premiere Pro, since I'm using the older than dirt version six.

This problem seems very prevalent in Windows Vista, as well as 7.

I've tried to uninstall all offending programs to no avail. I have also installed recommended 'vista codec packs', which have also failed to solve the problem.

In fact, I have tried all the steps in both of these links:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/fix-for-com-surrogate-has-stopped-working-error-in-vista/
http://www.webtlk.com/2008/06/30/how-to-fix-com-surrogate-has-stopped-working-issue/

Neither have produced positive results. The 'no thumbnail' trick kinda works, as a bandaid, but still causes crashes (it is at least how I was able to finish MOUPS last night).

I need an actual solution. This is a crippling bug, video is kinda sorta important in my life and career, not fixing this is not a solution.

I may just end up reinstalling Win7, since I finally partitioned my drive correctly, it would be easy. Sure I'd have to do drivers and such all over again, but c'est la vie.

Any ideas, Icrontic?

Snarkasm

I would vote for the reinstall, and test at every step of the way whether the problem crops up again. At least that way you can pin it down (hopefully, at least) rather than guessing at what to uninstall or try and clean up manually.

Sucks. Sorry. :/

Thrax

That's my advice as well. Just download all your drivers and runtimes in advance and you'll be back to normal in 30 minutes.

UPSLynx

I wiped the partition and reinstalled Win7 this morning.

I tried to isolate the problem, Adobe Premiere was not it. I was fully expecting that to be it.

I presume the problem causer was Ahead Nero, I haven't bothered installing it just because I don't want ot deal with it again.

I also found Cyberlink's PowerDVD to be a catalyst to my performance woes. though it didn't cause the COM Surrogate error, it did reduce boot time speed and explorer performance. I'm hoping this was the reason why XSI ran so slowly.

Before the COM surrogate error cropped up, I installed PowerDVD and Nero at the same time, so it makes sense that these two brought the pain.

Thrax

Why bother installing PowerDVD?

UPSLynx

Because I HATE using Windows media player for DVDs.

I was never able to properly decode DTS, Pro Logic II, or any true digital surround sound stream from DVDS (96khz 24bit). I have digital surround sound speakers, I'm an audiophile, I'm using them to the best of their ability.

PowerDVD I used because I had it, simply. It also had great audio options for streaming digital 5.1 and the like.

Now that my Creative software doesn't work in Win7, I need to be able to set up decoding in the DVD playing software.

I haven't messed with WMP in 7 yet, so things very well may have changed by now.

Thrax

So don't use Windows Media Player. Use Media Player Classic or VLC, both of which support all the features you're describing.

UPSLynx

Never could stand VLC's UI.

Media Player Classic is good.

But like I said, I had PDVD, and it worked, so I left well enough alone.

I'll probably stick with MPC this time around.