Hollywood Plus conflict with my Office XP Pro...

[dcxman 0]

Morning all.

 

I recently did a clean install of Win2K Pro. Prior to that I had WinME which for the most part ran quite well despite public opinion experiences. To say the least I had to load Win2K on for certain apps I needed that would only work with Win2K.

 

I did the service pack 3 with all the accompanying updates. It was completely bare and then I installed Office XP Pro and it launched without error.

 

I then loaded my drivers for my Hollywood. Then I load the Hollywood App (latest one). I launch it and it tells me that the device driver is in use.

 

Lucky I made an image of the system at bare before any other software installs. So I reimaged and did the Hollywood first. I launched it without error and was able to play my Matrix DVD.

 

I installed Office XP Pro and launched it without error. I then relaunched my Hollywood and got the error message again saying that the driver was in use.

 

Now get this, I then go to my device manager and try to uninstall my Hollywood driver. It crashes the system as soon as I hit the uninstall. I reboot and then just try to disable the driver. System crashes as soon as I hit the disable.

 

Can anyone tell me if they've encountered this problem and has a fix for it? I would really like to use my Office XP again with my Hollywood on one system but if I have to I will go back to using Office 2K instead.

 

Oh by the way I have tried using the older versions of app and driver for my Hollywood and I get the same result.

 

Thanks in advance either way as always.

[GHack2k 0]

Hi dcxman,

 

I had a similar problem with HW+ when office 2k is installed. The problem is with a file called ctfmon.exe , which runs in the background. If u open task manager and end task on it , then run DVD station again it should now work.

 

You will have to to fill ctfmon.exe after every use of Office or a reboot , 'cause ctfmon.exe reappears!!!!

 

 

Hope this helps

[sapiens74 0]

Install the newest drivers.

 

 

Takes care of the problem

[Stoffer 0]

No sapiens, it doesnt.

I have the newest driver and i had the problem too.

I wrote to sigma designs and they are aware of it. In fact the write it in the readme when u download the drivers.

Of course u can close CTFMON.EXE everytime u wanna use ur hollywood+ card. But actually microsoft has a guide to uninstall it so u never have to worry about it anymore.

I uninstalled it and havent had any problems so i guess it does nothing. Here is the guide to uninstallation of CTFMON.EXE.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q282599&

[dcxman 0]

You guys were right. Ending ctfmon.exe does fix the issue and allows me to run my RealMagic Player afterwards.

 

However I'm not going to uninstall the ctfmon.exe because I actually need it in order for my speech to text to work in Word XP.

 

This is a real drag...But it fixes the issue for now, thought inconveniently.

 

I was wondering, will it work fine under WinXP Pro OS? I mean having Office XP and Realmagic running without having to kill ctfmon.exe?

 

Let me know if anyone's tried. If it does work I guess I'll reformat.

 

Thanks again guys

[Stoffer 0]

No it wont work. The issue has nothing to do with the OS. Its simply that totally annoying file that office XP installs that makes ur realmagic f*** up.

BTW what exactly are u using the file for. I have never used for anything.

[Stoffer 0]

This is what it says in the readme that comes with the hollywood+:

 

1 - If you are using Microsoft Office XP and you have its utility

CTFMON.EXE running, it'll stop DVD Station - the Hollywood Plus-

DVD player from playing encrypted movies. This utility injects

MSCTF.DLL in the memory space given by Windows to hardware and

software manufacturers. A workaround is under investigation to

avoid this conflict. A temporary solution is to disable this

utility before the playback of movies : press CTRL+ALT+DEL,

click on CTFMON.EXE, and click "End Task". After the movie

playback, restart CTFMON.exe from Start-Run : ctfmon.exe & OK.

[Admiral LSD 0]

I could have sworn I had a post in this thread...

 

Anyways, I'll have to see about getting rid of the CTFMON.EXE program myself since I plan on getting a Hollywood Plus card tomorrow. I don't use any of the advanced text services so I shouldn't be adversely affected by it.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Question: What version of the REALMagic software are you all using? I installed my HW+ today and even with ctfmon.exe still running it plays fine.

[Stoffer 0]

Im using the newest one from www.sigmadesigns.com

[Admiral LSD 0]

I'm simply using the one that came on my CD (dunno what version it is) and like I said, it seems to be working fine, ctfmon.exe and all. I'll download the newer version and see what happens though.

 

While on the subject of the HW+ does anyone else here notice the signal degradation while using the analogue pass-through cable?

 

edit: I just upgraded to the latest versions of both the HW+ drivers and teh DVD Station software and they still work perfectly with ctfmon.exe loaded.

[dcxman 0]

Just got back home today from out of town work.

 

Hey Stoffer/Admiral LSD.

 

Thanks for the responses.

 

Stoffer, the "ctfmon.exe" is part of Office XP's new improved language bar settings which intergrates voice recognition and voice to text for Word XP. I would still like the ctfmon.exe to run on my system as I find the voice recognition and voice to text tool very handy.

 

Right now as it stands I have followed the guide from Microsoft to uninstall the ctfmon.exe file and have it removed from my system at the moment. Now I can run Word XP without crashing my Hollywood as I had originally with Office 2000. I am able to "surf" the net, run Office and let my wife watch her DVD's all at the same time. I love it. Just no voice to text.

 

Admiral, I am using the latest drivers off of SigmaDesigns website and have even reverted back through previous versions without success.

 

Curious Admiral, have you loaded Office XP fully or are you just using the ctfmon.exe file on it's own for some higher level purpose above my comprehension?

 

Thanks all again, as always.

[adamvjackson 0]

Any word on if Office XP SP1/SP2 addressed this issue? Has this been determined to be a Microsoft or Hollywood problem? Anything from either company admitting to a problem/incompatibility?

[Stoffer 0]

Sigmadesigns admits the problem. But they dont seem to do anything about it since the latest drivers on their website if from the end of 2000.

[adamvjackson 0]

Have you contacted them and voiced your concerns for compatibility problems?

[dcxman 0]

Hey Adamvjackson.

 

I had already tried both service packs for Office XP without result. And I even tried just Office XP SP1 by itself first.

 

Office XP SP's won't resolve this issue.

 

Their support line is long distance for me as I live in Canada and they do not have a 1-800 number. I don't feel like calling in long distance to find out the same thing they told me in the email, "We are currently dealing with this issue".

 

Oh well, C'est la vie.

 

Thanks anyways.

[dcxman 0]

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

Admiral, I am using the latest drivers off of SigmaDesigns website and have even reverted back through previous versions without success.

I have Office XP SP2 (installed from a slipstreamed CD in case that makes a difference) fully installed and ctfmon.exe running (as in viwable by the Task Manager) and with both the drivers that came with my Hollywood and the new ones from Sigma Designs the problem didn't occur. I'm having some other issues though (such as spontaneous reboots when viewing particular parts of some DVDs and the fact that the H+ has taken over as the systems default MPEG decoder causing problems) but I doubt ctfmon is responsible for those as terminating it made no difference.

[dcxman 0]

I don't know what to say Admiral LSD.

 

I'm just stating from my own experience of what happened and it is the ctfmon.exe file "for me" that kills my RealMagic Player. Admiral LSD, if you were able to get away with it and have your ctfmon.exe file working then my hat's off to you. For me, it's not the case as I have to kill the ctfmon.exe process in order to get my RealMagic Player working again.

 

Stoffer, you were a great deal of help and thanks again for that link to the Microsoft article on dealing with removing ctfmon.exe.

 

Thanks again all.

 

PS. I got email response from SigmaDesigns today, "We are aware of the Microsoft Office XP issue with our software and are currently working diligently for the fix. In the meantime we ask that you please be patient and disable the ctfmon.exe file, as we stated in the 2.3 beta read me file, when you need to play your media until we do fix it with a new release. Thank you."

[sapiens74 0]

They have claimed they are working on it for more then a year. I brought this up in emails to them a year ago when I was Beta Testing Office.

 

If it isnt't fixed now it ain't going to be fixed.

[dcxman 0]

I'm guessing they're putting all their R & D into the New RealMagic XCard. Does everything the HW+ did and also now includes MPEG-4 output (Divx).

 

If that card works with Office XP I may upgrade and hand-me-down this card.

 

We'll see

 

Thanks