BSOD(s) only when launching Photoshop Elements 9

[DangerFourpence]

Hi I've registered specifically to get a handle of this one. Adobe were pretty useless/dismissive but I'm certain you guys will be able to tell me what the score is.

3 month old HP laptop, 4gb running with a user installed 64Gb SSD and Windows 7 32-bit. No other mods. OS was re-installed onto SSD from manufacturer's supplied Windows 7 DVD and drivers updated. No major issues until I installed PSE9 recently. Seen a couple of BSOD in the time I've had the machine, but nothing to worry about.

When I first installed PSE9, I thought you needed Adobe Reader (I use/prefer FoxIt), so installed it then found out you didn't. So I got rid of it and shortly after that I saw my first BSOD with Bad_Pool_Caller. So I thought it might be in some way related. As the issue continued I rolled back to an image made by Paragon (I do a weekly backup) and reinstalled PSE9 without additionally installing Reader. This worked fine for a couple of weeks until a few days back when it started intermittently BSOD-ing on launch again. That's when I contacted Adobe, who rather quickly dismissed it from minimal information as being nothing to do with PSE9.

As a LookNStop driver (lnsfw1.sys) is mentioned as well as the network driver TCP.sys I contacted their support, but I've yet to hear back. Later that day I had a different BSOD Bad_Pool_Header referencing halmacpi.dll but not lnsfw1.sys so LNS may or may not be involved. I was wondering about avira but I can't locate any evidence.

The next thing I tried was Driver Verifer and after (hopefully) following the instructions correctly I got into a BSOD loop with it referencing 0x00000007. The only way out was to get into Safe Mode, then after that it booted normally.

Anyway I decided to roll back to an earlier drive image which I knew was completely stable, things were fine for 24 hours after reinstalling and using PSE9 then wham. . . BSOD again.

During the week I've also checked the memory (8-9 full clear passes with memtest), GPU driver and light GPU stress test, SSD drive and network/ethernet drivers. Bios is up to date and all other drivers. Laptop is pretty clear of bloatware and other junk.

Unfortunately I haven't saved the other recent dumps before I rolled back a couple of days again. So all I can include is today's and an unrelated one for some time back. For some reason the System Diagnostics Report doesn't see my AV(?!).

Can anyone shed some light on who or what is to blame here and what actions I should take? Things were absolutely fine before PSE9, many of the apps I use I've been using for years on XP, and npw 7, with zero issues. So if it means dumping Adobe and choosing something else I'm more than happy to do that!

Thanks for your time.

 

[yowanvista]

BSOD caused by LookNStop driver (lnsfw1.sys), remove the software using it

 

[DangerFourpence]

BSOD caused by LookNStop driver (lnsfw1.sys), remove the software using it

As I mentioned, that driver was not referred to in the other Bad_Pool_Header dump(s), so is it that simple? LNS is an exceptional and trusted app, I'd be sad to lose it without getting to the bottom of why it's happening.

Perhaps if I deny PSE9 access to the web through LNS it might stop it?

 

[yowanvista]

Even trusted apps sometimes cause BSODs, remove it and see if you get any more BSODs

 

[DangerFourpence]

Ok, I've uninstalled it for the time being and I'll report back. Fingers crossed the author will get back to me soonish. In the meantime is the latest incarnation of the Windows Firewall robust enough for daily use?