Unspecified error on startup

[Guest]

Every time I start Windows movie maker, I get the message "Unspecified Error"
and movie maker fails to start up. Since the problem happens on multiple
computers, I guess it has to do with some recent patches.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks,
Soumitra

 

[PapaJohn]

check my website's Problem Solving > Crashes and Hangs page.

 

[Guest]

Hate to reply to my own message, but I just found out the root cause and the
solution and thought I should share it just in case someone gets into the
same.

The problem seems to be a very trivial one. I usually change the temporary
folders to something I prefer with a custom name. However, Movie Maker seems
to be unable to handle temporary file names with embedded spaces! That's
quite odd, considering that it's a long time we did away with FAT
restrictions!!

Anyways, renaming the temporary folders, or overriding them using the
environment variables "%TEMP%" or "%TMP%" fixes the issue. I, of course, used
the latter and wrote a small script that would apply the fixup and start
Movie Maker.

Thanks,
Soumitra

 

[PapaJohn]

I'm glad you used the 'self-serve' lane.... as I can take your experience
and add it to one of my website's Problem-Solving pages.

Thanks

 

[PapaJohn]

I added it to my website, but then tested it with MM2.1. My temp folder had
been c:\Copy and I made a new folder named c:\Copy Folder and pointed Movie
Maker to it.

But it works fine this way too... so you're issue might involve more than
just the folder name with an embedded space.