The screen freezes on the "tips" splash screen. I get the sense that if "
tips was disabled, it would fix the problem. any ideas? I am running windows 7 64 bit.

It is the trial version I am trying. I want to buy it if I can get it to work.

If you are sure that you absolutely want to buy it, I would go ahead and buy it. The support room here will get you up and running very quickly. Probably within minutes of loading it up. It will probably work when you buy it and load it and if not the support room people will have you up and running amazingly fast.

Which operative are you running on your pc?
Do you have admin rights on the computer you are using?

It could be a faulty download or install. Maybe try to download and install again, but uninstall the current version first - and reboot.
If that doesn't work, try running VSD as an admin (right-click on the icon and choose run as admin).

BTW, I hope you are aware that Visual Site Designer (VSD) is a different programme from Responsive Site Designer (RSD), which is the one mentioned earlier in the other thread you posted in. If you want to have a responsive website that can be viewed on all sorts of screen sizes, I'd go for the latter.

Yes, wait and get Responsive Site Designer! VSD is pretty much dead since mobile/responsive sites are the norm now.

Inger probably had the solution though. Make sure you have 'admin' rights. To test, simply 'right-click' the startup icon and select 'Run as Administrator'. If that solves your problem come on back and we can tell you how to set that permanently.