Depressing Start!

[AndrewS]

All,

We are looking into this problem, but unfortunately, none of our QA or development engineers has never seen this problem themselves, so we can't use our debugging tools to track it down.

When I spoke with one of our tech support people a couple of weeks ago, she had an idea that it is related to UAC (user account control in Vista), but nothing concrete. She theorized that disabling UAC might fix the problem, but of course, we cannot be responsible for your decision to do that, so proceed only at your own risk. If you want to try it, Google for instructions with a query such as "vista disable uac". If you do this, please let us know the results. If it works, you may also try re-enabling uac after the first time you run to see if it behaves any differently afterward.

I just sent word about this problem to a second tech support rep and hopefully he'll have some ideas as well.

I'd like to reiterate that SketchUp 7 Free and Pro should both work on XP (32-bit or 64-bit) and all editions of Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).

For those of you who are interested in more technical details, keep reading. Otherwise, ignore the rest.

Although the error message is cryptic, it is clear that whatever problem is occurring terminates inside the Windows system library Secur32.dll, which is a built-in module that assists with Windows security. As everyone is aware, Vista has far more security devices than XP, so it's likely that the added Vista security items are the source of the problem (no one has reported this problem on XP).

Essentially, whenever SketchUp (or any other program, for that matter) needs Windows to do something on its behalf, it makes a "call" into one of many system libraries that are built into Windows. It is by using these system libraries that programs get access to things like manipulating the registry or files on disk, determining the time of day, or finding out who is currently logged on, among thousands of other things. Evidently, in the course of trying to start SketchUp, a call is being made to a function that lives in Secur32.dll and that call is failing. The failure is probably due to a prerequisite not being met (an attribute being mis-configured before making the call, or something of that nature), or the function being given bogus data (probably because it isn't properly configured beforehand).

In order from least to most likely, the failure can be due to a bug in the library itself (Microsoft's fault); due to a bug in SketchUp (out fault); or due to a problem in a third-party module such as a graphics card driver, in the event that SketchUp calls the driver and the driver calls Secur32.dll (third party's fault). In any case, the inability of Secur32.dll to take the requested action causes Windows to forcefully terminate SketchUp.

We've briefly looked at the startup code that we know makes calls into Secur32.dll and we are unable to locate any problems with it. Since we cannot duplicate it however, we can't use our more robust tools to try to diagnose the source of the error in real time. Although it's possible the problem is in our code, I currently believe it is related to a bug in a third-party program such as a graphics driver (or, much less likely, a problem in Secur32.dll itself).

I was just about to submit this message, but the tech support person I mentioned earlier has just written back asking me to provide the following link, which shows a discussion about this very issue. Perhaps that will shed some light on the situation. http://groups.google.com/group/sketchupissues/browse_thread/thread/c99ddb127a18a933

Note that the link above provides several other links to folks complaining of this problem. In their cases, it appears to be isolated to HP hardware.

Please read the links, decide if you want to try the uac workaround, and then ultimately respond and let me know if any of the additional material sheds light on your situation(s).

[commander]

Hi everyone, i had the same problem, with google sketchup 7, free version, i downloaded one week ago, (7.0.11018) i had the APPCRASH problem, with the same secure32.dll i dont understand that type of information, i didnt knew how to solved that. But what i know is that one week ago, i formatted mi cpu, and before that, i had GU installed, and i was working perfectly with it, even thought my computer wasnt in good conditions, so thats why i formatted it. But then i download the GU7, and it doesnt work, i try to download a NET framework, and that isnt the problem, what i thought, is that before i formatted, i hasnt have the NORTON INTERNET SECURITY CENTER, but after the format, it comes by default, so i erase it, and bingo! my sketchup is working fine... Norton always make thins so complicated.!

[imgfile:///C:/Users/Familia%20Pacheco/Desktop/Dibujo.jpgimg]

I want add the pic where it appears the norton, in the add/remove programs, but i dont know how to do it. so you can see the norton that i had! or maybe isnt neccesary! you are smarter guys...

hope this norton things can solve the problem for all you...