Work around XP SP3 glitches with CmSNXeye.exe

By Fred Langa Don’t tell PETA, but there’s more than one way to skin the XP SP3 cat. When a service pack breaks your software, sometimes you have to work the solution from the other end.

How to troubleshoot SP3 through the back door

Windows XP Service Pack 3 works fine on the vast majority of systems. On others — including Hallie Baron’s — it causes major headaches:

• “I read with great interest the Windows Secrets articles about the travails of XP SP3. Eventually, I got it to install, and now the computer is working fine except for one really annoying and frustrating problem. When I’m using Word and Outlook — and sometimes just Word alone — I get a dialog box that says this:

  CmSNXeye.exe — application error: Instruction @ ‘Ox77c2a61d’ referred memory @ ’0×00000004.’ The memory could not be written.

  “Uninstalling SP3 is impossible, so that’s not an option.”
  

You’re right, Hallie. Unless you made a full OS backup prior to installing SP3, there’s no simple way to put things back the way they were. But you may be able to solve the SP3 problem by modifying or simplifying the rest of your software setup, focusing on the parts that seem to be most broken.

For example, a quick Google search shows that CmSNXeye.exe belongs to the C-Media sound driver software. Why that software should affect Word or Outlook is a bit of a mystery (although certain functions of both apps can trigger sound effects). If I were you, I’d uninstall the C-Media sound software or drivers. When you reboot, see whether the problem is still there.

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