Both Microsoft Corporation and Adaptec have responded to a serious problem that afflicts Easy CD Creator 3.5 users that install Windows Media Player 7 (WMP7), which can cause Windows 2000 systems to become unresponsive and, more importantly, unbootable. Interestingly, each company essentially blames the other product: Microsoft says that Easy CD Creator 3.5 is "not designed to run on Windows 2000," while Adaptec claims that WMP7 "damages" Easy CD Creator 3.5's Registry entries. It's just another wild, wooly day of denial, I suppose, but at least they both offer a solution. Like many people, however, I wish I knew about this before completely hosing my system.
Since Microsoft's fix is the easiest to find and offers the most comprehensive instructions, I'll focus on that. But both companies suggest that you uninstall Easy CD Creator 3.5 before install WMP7, if you intend to keep using the Adaptec product after installing WMP7. Another option, if you're sure that you won't be using WMP7's CD burning capabilities (which, ironically, were supplied by Adaptec), is to uncheck the "Adaptec plugin" option during the install of Windows Media Player. In either case, use this time to make a Windows 2000 Emergency Repair Disk (ERD), which would help recover from such a problem: It's an option in Start -- Programs -- Accessories -- System Tools -- Backup. Sometimes the Windows 2000 recovery options can't find your installation without the ERD, and it's a situation I don't wish on anyone.
If it's already too late and your system won't boot, start your system with either a boot floppy or the Windows 2000 CDROM (depending on whether your CDROM can boot the system) and choose the "Repair a Windows 2000 installation" option and then "Recovery Console." In the text-based Recovery Console, delete the file named C:\WINNT\System32\Drivers\Cdr4vsd.sys (where C:\WINNT may be a different directory, depending on where you installed Windows 2000). Then reboot again. If your system boots, problem solved. If not, shut down your system and physically disconnect your CD-R and CD-RW drives. Then restart your computer into the Recovery Console as before and delete the C:\WINNT\System32\Drivers\Cdr4vsd.sys file again. Shut down the system, reattach the drives, and reboot.
Beyond this, you're still going to have some issues to resolve. Foremost among them is that you must choose which program--Windows Media Player 7 or Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3.5--you will use to burn CDs, as you will not be able to use both. For more information, please refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base, which outlines the issues and potential fixes nicely.
Thanks to everyone that wrote in about this issue
