Ableton crash on startup (Scanning VST's)

[Mjpa]

Whenever I load my Ableton Live it crashes as it scans through VST's and I assume this problem came from when I was trying to get a VST to work and accidentally made the directory the entire Program Files folder. Now whenever it opens it scans every file in there even thinking some .dll files from other things are VST's then crashes. I was wondering if there was a way to change the VST directory without having to open Ableton or reset it back to default / skip scanning.

[ollyb303]

Delete your preferences.cfg file, you'll need to set up your prefs again, but it'll fix the problem.

Can't remember the exact path as I'm in a pub on my iPhone, but a quick search on here will tell you.

[dentaku]

In Win7/Vista it would be in C:\Users\YourUsename\AppData\Roaming\Ableton\Live 8.x.x\Preferences

[Mjpa]

Amazing, that fixed it right away. Thank you both very much!

[ollyb303]

HTH

[ollyb303]

Next time do not delete your preference file but simply rename your VST directory. That will make Live stop scanning and immediately ask for a new location (which you can then skip).

Deleting your preference file is IMO overdoing it, esp. if you have much specific settings configured.

You can't rename the Program Files directory!