You do not want 3rd part sw clean up utilities and tune up utilities and this-will-make-your-computer-faster utilities. Many of these utilities install sw that constantly works in the background while your computer is running. While generally harmless, they can interfere with certain operations, steal resources, and sometimes even delete reg entries that you actually want and need.
Don’t worry, I will never make this mistake again. My Cubase has not worked properly since February. I just spent 6 x hours finally getting THE GRAND 3 to work (fingers crossed). And also this has cost the team at Steinberg a lot of effort in trying to help me over the phone and via Support Requests.
If your DAW is strictly or primarily a DAW it might have been quicker to reformat, and reinstall windows and your necessary software and drivers from scratch rather than try to uninstall and reinstall. (pref xmls could be saved on a stick for later retrieval)
I did consider this but decided to try un-installing and re-installing the Steinberg stuff. Touchwood, I think it has worked finally. So the culprit for sure must have been the ‘Tune Up’ software.
Dell are phoning me back tonight to see if everything has been ok for a 24 hour period and have still given me the option to re-format if I so wish.
One suggestion for you is once you get your computer straightened out consider making a system image and store it on an external HDD. Whenever I install an OS and all the DAW programs fresh I always make a system image of it right away. This way if you ever have a problem like you are experiencing you can just rei nstall the system image verses having to re format and re install everything. (especially Windows updates what a pita).
I am pleased you won’t be making the same mistake yourself.
I have booked my PC in for a ‘Clean Up’ at my local computer store and whom I have a software warranty with. The guy is going to check it out for me now that ‘Tune Up Utilities’ has been removed. Hopefully it wont need to be re-formatted now.
I use Arconis and I make an image at least every month. also, when I do a clean install, I create a few images, one with just windows os (with all drivers), then one with all non music programs, then a final one with everything. This is great for trouble shooting.
Yes that is it. Be sure to save on an external HDD using USB 2.0. Do not use USB 3.0 for the back up Windows does not recognize 3.0 when doing a restore.