TROUBLE WITH SAM 2020.11.29 FAILING TO OPEN PROPERLY

Hello again!

I submitted another fairly long message about this yesterday - Saturday June 12th.

There were two video files attached - "VIDEO 1" and "VIDEO 2" , which were I minute and 53 sec. long, respectively.  Let me know if you have any trouble viewing them. 

If you, Paul Gilman or anyone else (for instance, someone from Microsoft) want to contact me direct and in private about this, then you can e-mail me at

Another possible cause of the problem occurred to me.

Before I installed the new Windows 10 Version 20H2 on the old computer having the older version of Windows 10 previously referred to, I had to completely "wipe" the hard drive. 

This meant that any files remaining from the installs of older versions of SAM (starting, in my case, with SAM version 2017.9.5) would have been deleted. 

So that, installing SAM 20.11.29 r2 on that computer would mean that any files that it happens to need from older versions of SAM (such as 2017.9.5 ) would have been absent.

That said, I don't know how the  update process works when you install a new version of SAM.  

My other two computers, giving the same kind of trouble with SAM 20.11.29 r2, never had any previous versions of SAM installed on them. 

This has me wondering whether to try installing an older version of SAM (such as version 2017.9.5 ) on all three computers - before installing SAM 20.11.29 r2

Robert T. Chisholm

Hi Robert,

Each version of SAM runs separately. You can have two different versions of SAM on your computer, and they will each run independently of each other. Newer versions do not depend on files from older versions, so I don't think the problems you are having would be solved by installing older versions of SAM on your computer.

Best regards,
Paul.

OK Paul, thanks  - so that eliminates ONE of the possible causes of my problems!

Robert T. Chisholm

Hi Robert,

I looked through Microsoft's list of issues for Windows 10 20H2 and don't see any thing that would cause trouble for SAM.

Steve Janzou in his reply above says he was able to run SAM on his computer running Windows 10 20H2. Mine is still on Windows 10 2004 (Build 19041), so I can't be of much help with testing.

Thanks,
Paul.

Yes, I have no argument at all with what you and Steve have said. Many thanks for your efforts to date!

Were you able to view the VIDEO 1 and VIDEO 2 attached to my June 13th posting?

The overall indication seems to be that there is something wrong with the Windows 10 Version 20H2 installation on my two computers which have it, and with the third computer running the Windows 10 Home  edition that I referred to before. All three are manifesting similar symptoms when I try running SAM on them.

I'm not concerned about the computer which runs the Windows 10 Home  edition - it's my wife's, and she doesn't use SAM at all.

If my own installations of Windows 10 Version 20H2 are the culprits in all this, then I could try running another test with SAM Version 2017.9.5 (which of course I've used many times before - with no problem). The same or similar symptoms will likely occur.

If that actually happens then this would tend to further confirm that my problem involves missing or corrupted Windows files. I've no idea how or why that might have happened with my installations of Windows 10 version 20H2 - not on just one computer, but two.  Yet at this point it seems to me to be the only plausible explanation for what's happening. 

It looks increasingly clear to me that we will need to ask Microsoft about this.

I could also try finding someone here in Ottawa who also uses SAM (and I can't believe there isn't any such person), then I could take screen shots of his lists of Windows files for comparison with mine - to see if there are any Windows files obviously missing in my system. Such a comparison would be useful only the other person's computer is also running Windows 10 Version 20H2. But even if I then find nothing obviously wrong,  that would not preclude the possibility of corrupted Windows file(s) on my own machine(s).

If I can find someone here in Ottawa, Canada, who uses SAM and whose computer also runs Windows 10  Version 20H2, I'll let you know.  Meanwhile if you can let me know of anyone else like this in Ottawa, that might also help.

Sincerely, Robert T. Chisholm