I am attempting to install the “Pinnacle PCTV TV Centre Pro” software onto a laptop computer running Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2. However, immediately upon entering the serial number during the installation the blue screen of death appears with the message BAD_POOL_HEADER with quite a bit of other output. The computer then restarts into Safe Mode. I have downloaded the latest version of the software and drivers but the problem continues. Pinnacle advised me to turn off any spyware or antivirus software on the computer (as I am currently running ZoneAlarm Pro, AVG Free 8, and Spyware Doctor 6) but the problem continues with this software disabled. Can you help? The software installs perfectly fine on my other computer running Windows XP.

When researching the problem I found another user who encountered exactly the same issue when installing Pinnacle software on their computer. Furthermore, they were also running Spyware Doctor on the computer experiencing the problem. When that user investigated the dump log from the blue screen of death it indicated that a file related to Spyware Doctor was involved in the crash of the computer and uninstalling Spyware Doctor resolved the problem. You mention that you have tried disabling Spyware Doctor when installing the software, but it may be worthwhile trying to completely uninstall Spyware Doctor to see whether this resolves the problem. If this does not fix the problem, it would also be advisable to try uninstalling the other security software on the computer (being ZoneAlarm Pro and AVG Free) to see whether this helps the situation. Often when you disable such security software it does not completely disable itself, but instead keeps some elements running in the background which provide relatively rudimentary protection while the main functions of the software are disabled. However, before uninstalling the security software on your computer I would recommend that you completely disconnect your computer from any networks (such as your home network or the internet) as your computer could be vulnerable to attack during the period that the security software is disabled, so by disconnecting the computer from networks this should eliminate the risk of any infection from these sources. Of course, once you have successfully installed the Pinnacle software, or alternatively determined that uninstalling the security software did not resolve the problem, you should promptly reinstall the security software to restore the computer to a full level of protection. If you were able to successfully install the Pinnacle software when the security software was disabled then hopefully the conflict was only an issue during installation of the software and will not be ongoing. If you find that the problem continues when using the software then you may need to permanently uninstall the security software causing the problem and find an alternative package which meets your needs but does not conflict with Pinnacle. It may also be worthwhile checking whether any updated versions of the security software (or the Pinnacle software) is available that does not suffer from these problems.

In the event that disabling the security software on your computer does not resolve the problem then I would suspect that something else running on your computer is conflicting with the Pinnacle installer. The best way to narrow down the problem is to disable all processes and services from loading on Windows startup. If the problem stops after you have disabled all such processes and services then we know one of those was causing the problem. Be aware, this is likely to disable security software from loading on your computer. Therefore, I would heed the advice given previously and disconnect your computer from any networks before proceeding, as the disabling of the security software could result in your computer being vulnerable. Once your computer is disconnected from any networks we can proceed with disabling all processes and services from loading on startup.

Go to the “Start” menu and in the “Search” box type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and press ENTER. This should open the System Configuration Utility. We will commence by disabling programs and processes which load on startup. Select the “Startup” tab. You will see a listing of items within a table, with an optional tick-box beside each item. All the ticked items are enabled to load on startup. Write down all the items which are enabled (as we will need to use this later to re-enable those items). Once you have compiled this list, click the “Disable All” button at the bottom of the window. Now that we have finished disabling startup programs and processes we need to disable background services from loading on startup. Click the “Services” tab. You will notice at the bottom of the window the option “Hide all Microsoft services”. Tick this option. The reason is that we do not want to disable Microsoft services, since many of those services are system-critical. In fact, the Pinnacle software installer may not run at all should the Microsoft services be disabled, since some of these services control the Windows Installer system. Once you have hidden the Microsoft services, write down all of the services which are enabled (ticked) and then manually untick each of the services (do not click the “Disable all” button, just in case that also disables the hidden Microsoft services). Once this has been completed you have now disabled all non-Microsoft services from loading on startup. Combined with the fact that you have disabled all the startup programs and processes from loading, only system-critical services should now load on startup. Click OK to save and close the System Configuration Utility. You should be prompted to restart the computer, to which you should agree.

Once the computer has restarted you should notice that very little in the way of background programs or processes load, since they have been disabled. A message may also appear informing you that the computer is running in Selective Startup mode. This is simply indicating that not all startup items are enabled and thus your computer is selectively starting-up. You can safely dismiss this message. Now that the computer has finished starting, try to install the Pinnacle software and see whether it is successful. If all goes to plan, open the System Configuration Utility again and re-enable all the startup items and services which you previously disabled. Click OK to save the changes and restart the computer. Once the computer has restarted, check whether the Pinnacle software still loads and functions correctly. If so, then it seems that something running in the background was preventing the software from being installed. In this case all now seems well and no further action is required. However, it would be worthwhile noting down this procedure in case you need to reinstall the software in the future.

On the other hand, if you find that the software does not work once all of the startup items and services have been re-enabled then one of those items is conflicting and preventing the Pinnacle software from running, in addition to installing properly. In this case, I suggest that you take a trial and error approach to narrowing down the root cause. Go back into the System Configuration Utility and disable all the startup items again, then restart and check whether the problem continues. If the problem does not occur, then one of the startup items was causing the problem and it is a case of re-enabling them one-by-one to determine which one is causing the problem. However, if the problem continues to occur when all the startup items are disabled then it seems that they are not causing the problem. In this case, re-enable all the startup items and then disable all the non-Microsoft services. Once this has completed click OK and restart, then check again whether the problem still occurs. If not, then this will also just be a process of elimination to determine the problematic service. Once you have determined the problem service you should leave that service disabled and then re-enable all the other services. At this point you may wish to undertake additional investigations into that particular service and why it may be causing problems. I suggest that you search Google for the service and see whether any other users have experienced similar problems, or whether there is an update or fix to resolve this problem.