Application initialisation failure

[cadmaster]

I have a new Dell computer running Win XP pro (which I am not totally familiar with) and have just come back to the machine after a couple of hours to find a message "The application failed to initialise properly (0x0000017). Click OK to terminate the application." in a box titled 'Windows - application error'
Clicking OK just produced a tone and the message reappeared.
After repeated clicks with the same result I tried Ctrl-Alt-Del which brought up a log-in screen which would not accept my password. Changing to administrator enabled me to log-off but trying to log-on again produced the same message.
I switched the machine off and it appears to have re-booted normally - has anyone seen this behaviour before?

The machine was left with two Windows Explorer sessions, AutoCAD, Excel and Internet Explorer running with an ISDN connection open (protected by ZoneAlarm Pro and Norton AV).
There are two other computers on the local network (Win2k and Win 98SE).

[bassman]

Three things:
- check your memory: www.memtest86.com (http://www.memtest86.com)
- your swap file may not be behaving properly; try "creating" a new one: Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab -> Performance Options -> Virtual Memory area -> Change -> select the largest partition on your system, then enter something like 1024 on Initial and Maximum Size (same value for both fields) and press Set.
- Reboot, retry and post back :)

[rraehal]

If you find no erros from bassmans suggestions:

I would say that there is a startup application that can not load. Are you suing an account (not administrator) that has limited access rights? It seems if you get this message after logging on it is not a service but an application located in your startup group or the registry.

Use MSCONFIG to see what is trying to load (Click Start, select run, type msconfig in the box, and click OK. Go to the startup tab. You can uncheck items you do not want to load. Look at the items and if you see something out of the ordinary ask us.

I know dell loads a lot of their own software. CD Burn utilities, the DADAPP etc...

[{EATT}Mr.X]

I just got a new dell like 3 months ago and I play a game call "Wolfenstein - ET" online and it was running fine untill a few days ago...... after about 30min to 1hr of play I will get a "connection interupted" and lag out so I have to close the game, but after I close it my internet is down but my roommates is up and we are on a router.... so when i push ctrl+alt+del that same error pops up and then i cannot use internet till i restart my comp..... any ideas what may be causeing this???