At some point, my WinSAT refuses to complete. I have Vista Home Premium
SP1, been through numerous alleged registry fixes, uninstalled
everything that has ever been installed that has to do with codec's or
multimedia, etc.etc.

My system has a Radeon 4870, Creative X-Fi soundcard with the latest
drivers, Vista Home Premium 32 bit, 4 gigs of ram. No other problems
other than this annoying system index isn't rated.

I've tried earlier restore points to no avail. I also tried installing
(and uninstalling/reinstalling) Windows Media Encoder 9 series with no
luck. Without saying, I've also uninstalled my video drivers and
re-installed them without help.

When I run the Windows Index Experience tool, it finishes with a dialog
that states: "Cannot complete assessment. The assessment or other
operation did not complete successfully..." etc.etc.

The WinSAT.log lists only the following error:
============================
6445571 (5480) - winsat\main.cpp:1161: Running Assessment: media
'-input {winsatencode.wmv} -encode {winsat.prx}'
6445961 (5480) - winsat\main.cpp:1430: Assessment FAILED due to an error

If I run winsat formal -v, the log for the above section lists:
============================
Run Time 00:00:44.07
Running: Media Decode/Encode Assessment v1.0.0.0 '-input
C:\Windows\Performanc
e\WinSAT\winsatencode.wmv -encode
C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\\winsat.prx -v'
Initializing COM.
Creating temporary file for encoding output...
Temporary output file "C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\Temp\wst51E8.tmp "
created.
Creating temporary file for ETW kernel trace...
Temporary trace file "C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\Temp\wst51E9.tmp "
created.
Creating filter graph.
Loading encoder profile from "C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\\winsat.prx".
Creating encoder, saving to temporary file.
Disabling file sink.
Loading input file "C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\winsatencode.wm v".
FAIL: mediautils.cpp @ 592: 0x80040241 == VFW_E_CANNOT_LOAD_SOURCE_FILTER
(The source filter for this file could not be loaded.)
FAIL: mediatest.cpp @ 490: 0x80040241 == VFW_E_CANNOT_LOAD_SOURCE_FILTER
(The source filter for this file could not be loaded.)
Error: WinSAT failed to connect the input file to the WMV encoder.
Deleting temporary output file
"C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\Temp\wst51E8.tmp ".
...
Deleting temporary ETW trace
"C:\Users\owner\AppData\Local\Temp\wst51E9.tmp "...

Run Time 00:00:00.39
MOOBE Run Time 00:00:46.11
Running: Media Foundation Playback Assessment v1.0.0.0 '-input
C:\Windows\Perf
ormance\WinSAT\winsat.wmv -nopmp -v'
Creating temporary files for ETW tracing...
Temporary trace files created.
Initializing COM.
Initializing Media Foundation.
Creating playback window.
Resolving source.
Creating session for source.
Attaching event sinks.
Building topology.
Resizing window.
Starting kernel logger.
Starting EVR logger.
Starting playback.
Waiting for finish.
Finished!
Stopping EVR logger.
Stopping kernel logger.
Opening kernel trace log...
Opening EVR trace log...
Processing kernel trace log...
-------------------------------

I wish I had the source code from above. Anyone have any suggestions
aside from "reinstall" ?