To anyone that's having the "software won't open" problem!

[astroop]

Hey guys, new to the boards here, but not new to the Zune problems!! haha

anyway, I used to use Zune 2.5 and the only way I could get it to open was by using the "-gdi" trick. Well, I upgraded to 3.0, only to find that the "-gdi" trick doesn't work. I tried EVERYTHING, but nothing seemed to work. Except now! I just stumbled across this thread and it WORKED!! It has to do with that DX10 "preview" called the AlkyProject or something. I remember I downloaded it to see if it would work for MS Flight Simulator X. Well all you gotta do is remove those files. ****I'm not taking credit for this fix, just posting it here in case people have not heard of this fix yet****

See post below:

Found out the cause! This probably won't affect almost any of you, but in case it does I'll post what I did to help you out.

Turns out the reason it wouldn't start was because of an old DX10 type hack/mod I had installed on XP called the Alky project: this allowed you to (attempt) to run DX10 on WinXP. I never even figured to uninstall it after I got done toying with the thing and it's never given me problems up until now. Turns out you have to go through and delete all of the Alky DX10 files before the Zune software wants to work. Here's the post that lead me to the discovery: (link removed)

This post in particular lists the files to get rid of (I just moved them into a new directory just in case it blew up):
Chacker2
08-20-2007, 10:40 PM
Ive found out the fix too,

Do this, go C:\WINDOWS\system32 then delete this files

d3d10.dll
d3dx10.dll
d3dx10_33.dll
d3dx10d.dll
d3dx10d_33.dll
dxgi.dll
Nucleus.dll

Zune Software now works!

[Daemonfaa]

You are my god, thank you so much

[Justananomaly]

And ultimately make sure you do get the CORRECT DX10 files installed afterward...

[superpeanutman23]

you should never mess with the system 32 files.
those are needed to start up windows and deleting the wrong files could cause you to need a system recovery where you will have to delete everything on your computer and then reinstall windows.
I may not know game programming but i do know computers very very well.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by superpeanutman23

you should never mess with the system 32 files.
those are needed to start up windows and deleting the wrong files could cause you to need a system recovery where you will have to delete everything on your computer and then reinstall windows.
I may not know game programming but i do know computers very very well.

If you know what you're doing, it's not as bad; smart people make back-ups. And in order to replace System32 files, you need to use Replacer, which autmatically makes backups. If you're on Vista and you somehow figure out the whole "take permission" thing, you've already got it nailed.