Tech: Solution to the Symantec PCAnywhere AW_Host.SYS error

anovelo — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:30:00 +0000

A problem I regularly find with clients who use PCAnywhere is that during pc startup or when PCAnywhere itself is started you get the error message “"pcAnywhere has had a compatibility problem with your system. AW_HOST.SYS has been disabled. To re-enable, choose Options from the Tools menu. On the Host Operation property page, change the video mode to ‘Accelerator Enabled’" or a message that says "unknown error loading device drivers." . The following solution will take care of the problem quickly and easily.

Open PCAnywhere and run Live update (Located under the help section in all versions of PCAnywhere that I can recall).

2. Modify the Windows AW_HOST registry key by clicking on Start > Run.

3. In the Run dialog box, type the following text: regedit then click OK.

4. In the Registry Editor dialog box, go to the key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>System>CurrentControlSet>Services>AW_HOST

5. In the right pane, click Start.

6. On the Edit menu, click Modify.

7. In the Edit DWORD Value window, change "Value Data" to 1. Then Click OK.

8. Close the Registry Editor.

Information is based on Symantec Document ID:2003082808432312 (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/pca.nsf/ppfdocs/2003082808432312?Open&dtype=corp&src=&seg=&om=1&om_out=prod)

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Tech: Solution to the Symantec PCAnywhere AW_Host.SYS error