Are you able to see additional details in the crash message, such as a DLL file that is having issues, etc?

I have the same problem here with Vista 64 Premium.

Looking at Event Viewer I see:
Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 10/01/2009 7:28:20 AM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description:
Faulting application MsWin.exe, version 10.0.0.0, time stamp 0x47047ff1, faulting module astdll.dll, version 4.2.3.0, time stamp 0x45d5fc8d, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000019c9, process id 0x1224c, application start time 0x01c972a992e3039a.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-01-09T22:28:20.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>47150</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>MsWin.exe</Data>
<Data>10.0.0.0</Data>
<Data>47047ff1</Data>
<Data>astdll.dll</Data>
<Data>4.2.3.0</Data>
<Data>45d5fc8d</Data>
<Data>c0000005</Data>
<Data>000019c9</Data>
<Data>1224c</Data>
<Data>01c972a992e3039a</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

Note that this is MetaStock v10.1 (even though it says 10.0.0.0 - somebody didn't advance that on the build). Build date Oct 3 2007.

I'm running Vista 64 and have had no problems with Metastock 10.1. 99.9% of problems people have with Vista is that they are not running the program as an administrator. Go to your metastock icon and right-click for properties. Look for 'run program as an administrator'. That should fix it. If not you should be able to run the program in emulation mode for XP, that also should fix it. Other than that, make sure your anti-virus/firewall is letting metastock "phone home" for data, etc. good luck

Biff

Meanwhile, I have managed to stabilize the behavior of the program by going to services management and adjusting the properties of the astdll.dll service, that is being run by MS 10.1, to load manually rather than automatically and turnig off the VISTA User Control. For some reason, and after a number of manual start and restarts of the servicethe program does not crash anymore. The drawback of this solution is that the User Control feature of Vista remains turned off and is annoying.

This is something we have seen on a small number of systems, but as of now it is not something we can reproduce. I have been doing some research into this issue, but this is not something I will likely be able to find a quick solution for.

I use Vista Ultimate 64-bit at home with MetaStock and have never had a problem. The vast majority of users we have on Vista 64-bit do not have this issue.

The only thing I can think of is that somehow the AST Service is having permission-related issues on some PC's. And possibly when you launch MetaStock something changes how the service is running. This is all speculation at this point, however.