Audacity has stopped working... before it opens.

[glerpy]

So, I recently installed Audacity on my new computer which is running Vista. It worked for a good few hours, but then I got a message saying "audacity.exe has stopped working" and it closed. Now, whenever I try to open it, the program doesn't even open all I get is this message. It says that windows is searching for an answer to the problem, but it never finds anything. I've uninstalled and re-installed a bunch of times, but it doesn't help. No matter what I do it just wont open, although I'm not all that computer savvy so I may be missing something. Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[steve]

It says that windows is searching for an answer to the problem, but it never finds anything.

No, it never does. Just like when it says "looking for necessary codec", then comes back "can't find one", or when using the Windows "Trouble Shooters", which after a list of things that you have already tried say "don't know then".

Anyway, I digress.

When you uninstall Audacity, the Audacity configuration file doe not get removed. This is deliberate as it enables you to update Audacity without having to set up any custom preferences again. The downside is that if these is a problem in one of the settings that stops Audacity from working, then that setting is still there after you uninstall and reinstall.

So to do a clean install, you need to reset your preferences to the default values. The easiest way to do this is to search for the file "audacity.cfg" (without quotes) and delete it. It maybe a hidden file, so allow that option when you search.
The default location is Documents and Settings<user name>Application DataAudacity audacity.cfg

If you still have problems, check here for help on installing Audacity on Vista.
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... s_Vista_OS