Silencing part of a track causes Audacity to Crash

[Cynthia]

I've tried to silence part of several different tracks, but it always causes Audacity to crash. What's happening? I'm using Audacity 1.2.6 and Windows XP. Thanks.

[steve]

Try updating to Audacity 1.3.11
To silence part of a track - select the bit that you want to silence and press Ctrl+L

[Cynthia]

unfortunately, as long as 1.3 is labeled as a Beta version, the IT person at work (where I'm using the program) won't let me install it.

[kozikowski]

<<<unfortunately, as long as 1.3 is labeled as a Beta version>>>

Yes. This comes up now and again. The developers refuse to rename the version or stop using the "unstable" character. A big mistake according to us down here on the front.

For example, if you're on a newer Mac, Audacity 1.2 will not run at all. It's stable only in that it fails 100% of the time.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I don't know of any option. Corporate IT policies tend to be bolted in steel -- usually for some very good reasons.

Koz

[steve]

unfortunately, as long as 1.3 is labeled as a Beta version, the IT person at work (where I'm using the program) won't let me install it.

There may be a loophole.
Audacity 1.3 can be used without installing it.

If you download the "ZIP" version of Audacity 1.3.11 (available near the bottom of this page: http://audacityteam.org/download/beta_windows ) all you need to do is to "extract" the contents of the ZIP file onto the computer and create a link to the audacity.exe file (or just double click on the audacity.exe file) to launch Audacity. This does not require Administrator access to the computer as it does not make any system changes and does not require writing anything to the Windows registry.

After Audacity has been run for the first time it will create a folder in your user space on the computer where it will store its settings.

Don't let me get you into trouble though - you may still need to get authorisation, though the IT department are likely to be a lot happier about running Audacity 1.3.x in this way as it makes no changes to any system files or settings. You could also point out that Audacity 1.3.11 is the officially recommended version for Vista and Windows 7 ("best version for Windows 7 and Vista")