Sonic-Pi crashes when saving or recording on Windows dell / alienware computers [SOLUTION, HOW TO FIX]

Hello, new sonic-pi user here. I am mainly interested in making ambient music and I am really enjoying myself. But whenever I click the record or the save as button the program stops working and crashes. I found a solution! But I saw this not being discussed anywhere else, not on the github issues or in here so here we go!

How to fix it

Alienware computers (and some dell computers I believe) come with built in software that interferes with the windows explorer for some reason.

So if you click on save as then the file browser would come up, then crash after a second. If this is what happens in your computer, this will fix it.

  1. Download this tool: https://obsproject.com/downloads/UnregisterDellBackup.cmd
  2. Run it as administrator
  3. Done!

How I found out about this

This issue actually happens on all programs that use the save menu in windows. In my experience OBS also crashes when I use the file browser to add a image source. I found this on the OBS wiki labeled under “known conflicts”:

## Dell Backup & Recovery / Alienware Alien Respawn
This backup and recovery software is often bundled with Dell and Alienware systems. It is known to cause crashes whenever OBS Studio tries to open a "Browse" dialog (eg to select an image / video file). It is possible to disable the buggy component without completely removing the program:

* Download https://obsproject.com/downloads/UnregisterDellBackup.cmd
* Right click the .cmd file and run as administrator.

(source: https://obsproject.com/wiki/Known-Conflicts)

So because OBS users tend to be gamers, and they tend to have gaming laptops like alienware, because of this tons of alienware OBS users ran into this issue so OBS made this tool to fix it.

Just wanted to share this so other alinware users (or dell users) can record their code jams!

So spread the word and repost this if someone you know with a dell /alinware computers runs into any issues :sunglasses:

-alexesc

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