GUI fof DVDauthor - how do I make it work in Windows 7?

[RogiVagel]

I have been using GUI for DVDauthor for a number of years on my old XP system, which finally bit the dust and I've now upgraded to Windows 7.

I've seen a variety of posts suggesting GUI for DVDauthor works fine in Windows 7, but I keep getting error messages when I try to use it. All the error messages are along the lines of:

'The file/path contains special characters . . . and dvdauthor may not work properly'

or

'The output directory contains special characters . . .'

It lists examples of what it considers special characters which I will have some difficulty reproducing, but it lists accented letters. However, the files and directories contain no unusual characters, and renaming files doesn't help.

These errors occur when trying to insert .VOB files and when trying to change settings - leaving me unable to do anything much with it.

The error messages would appear to spurious, but has anyone got any ideas what error the program is actually trying to report and/or how to work around it?

[AlanHK]

Maybe the folder names are Unicode.
GfD uses several command line programs which are intolerant of anything except simple ASCII filenames.

Is your system set up with English as the primary language?

Anyway, if Windows will let you, make a new folder at the top level and install GfD in that, and also make folders for the source and VOBs.

[RogiVagel]

I've worked it out.

My user name contained '&' since I share the computer with my wife. Thus all the files had that in the path.

Unfortunately, although you can change your user name as it appears on the screen, you don't seem to be able change the folder name for your documents.

I've worked around it by using the public folders for all the output files. Now the program is happy.

Thanks for the reply though!