Hi, it's been a while since I asked for help, but I need some now. Mach3 has suddenly stopped loading. I am running windows 10 with the latest updates from MS. I haven't changed anything on the PC that I know of, but the PC has installed updates automatically from MS.
I am using an ESS as the motion control device. When I try to load M3 it displays the splash screen for a few seconds and then exits with no error message.

I tried the following solutions to fix the issue:
1/ Renamed the plugins folder and created another empty plugins folder. No change in symptoms

2/ Renamed the M3 folder and then did a clean install of M3 V3.043.062. No change in symptoms

3/ Installed M3 on a different PC and then copied my M3 folder from the PC with the issue to the different PC. At this point M3 worked again, with all of the settings that it had on the PC that had the original issue.

It looks like I will need to reinstall the OS, but I'd really like to avoid that since I have a lot of other software on the PC, which will take a lot of time to reconfigure. All of this other software cohabited happily with M3.

The application logs on the PC show the following errors:
Fault bucket -1376468173, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: Mach3.exe
P2: 1.0.0.1
P3: 4f7cadb7
P4: Mach3.exe
P5: 1.0.0.1
P6: 4f7cadb7
P7: c0000005
P8: 000e1696
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERE087.tmp.mdmp
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERE105.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERE125.tmp.xml
WPR_initiated_DiagTrackMiniLogger_One Trace User Logger_20180330 Event Collector_0_inject.etl
\\?\C:\Users\dpm\AppData\Local\Temp\WERE1B3.tmp.etl
WPR_initiated_DiagTrackMiniLogger_WPR System Collector_inject.etl
\\?\C:\Users\dpm\AppData\Local\Temp\WERE1C4.tmp.etl
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERE1D3.tmp.csv
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERE1F4.tmp.txt

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_Mach3.exe_b2b3438a4b22577a6836222a244524a992d7ab_569f85ca_09f9e7ea

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 71328820-d961-4f95-9ebb-4c0b0e059eef
Report Status: 268435456
Hashed bucket: 239de0f3940b78b735d12a64897ec5cc
Cab Guid: 0

and

Faulting application name: Mach3.exe, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x4f7cadb7
Faulting module name: Mach3.exe, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x4f7cadb7
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x000e1696
Faulting process id: 0x1e60
Faulting application start time: 0x01d3d09aef897873
Faulting application path: C:\Mach3\Mach3.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Mach3\Mach3.exe
Report Id: 21f5633b-f323-4587-be7e-bd77b6946436
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Help?

I think you were lucky to get away with it for so long.
It has been said so many times in the past that the PC running Mach3 should be a dedicated machine controller and nothing else. If necessary it could be connected to a network but certainly never connected to the internet and downloading OS updates etc.

Get yourself a cheap, dedicated, PC with fresh install to run Mach3 and use your best PC for all the other stuff. 

Tweakie.

Thanks Tweakie, it was, I'll admit, the purest optimism to hope for a quick fix. I have been lucky for the last 12 years or so, so now it looks like I'll have to bite the proverbial. Thanks anyway.
Dave

Hi Dave, sorry it wasn't the answer you wanted to hear.

(Technology is continuously changing so fast, making last year's stuff (which is perhaps considered old tech.) so cheap to buy. All my original HD's have now been replaced with SSD's and I make regular (USB connected) SSD clone backups of the whole drive. I have not had a problem (so-far) but when one comes it probably takes less than a minute to swap the SSD for the backup).

Tweakie.

i think we had this Win10 update stops working Problem a couple of times during tha last few weeks.

Try running Mach3 in compatibility mode maybe?

Thanks for the suggestion Ger, but compatibility mode was one of the first things i tried. I strongly suspect it was an update that broke it, I am part of the "MS beta testers stream" so I really don't have anyone to blame other than myself. To become part of this was just an inexpensive way of upgrading XP to W10 for free, and it worked for a few years.

Interesting TPS that you think you had the same issue, perhaps another update will fix it.

I's amazing what a difference a day makes... After spending quite a lot of time mucking around yesterday, I suddenly thought (prompted by Tweakie and TPS) why don't I just roll back the last update from MS. This I did and 10 mins later it is working again.
I must admit to feeling slightly eggy.
Dave