Windows Live Photo Gallery stops responding or will not start

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SYMPTOMS

When you try to start Windows Live Photo Gallery, the program stops responding or will not start.

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Windows Live Photo Gallery creates a database to keep track of the photos and the videos in your collection. If this database becomes corrupted, you may experience the symptoms that are described in the "Symptoms" section.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, you must force Windows Live Photo Gallery to regenerate the database. To do this, follow the steps for your operating system:

Windows Vista
1. Close Windows Live Photo Gallery.
2. Click Start
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  , type %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Photo Gallery in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
3. Right-click Pictures.pd4, and then select Rename.
4. Change the name of file to OLD_Pictures.pd4.
5. Start Windows Live Photo Gallery.
Note Windows Live Photo Gallery will re-create the database based on the metadata and information that is stored in your media files. Any metadata that is not written back to a media file will be lost. For example, the metadata could be lost because a media file was locked or read-only.
Windows XP
1. Close Windows Live Photo Gallery
2. Click Start, click Run, type %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows Live Photo Gallery, and then click OK.
3. Right-click Pictures.pd4, and select Rename.
4. Change the name of file to OLD_Pictures.pd4.
5. Start Windows Live Photo Gallery.