"This program has encountered a problem and needs to close"

[BlackScarlet]

I'm really sad because whenever I try to open dosbox or American McGee's Alice it crashes on startup, giving the above error message. Virus and spyware scans are clean, and reinstalling is unsuccessful. I used to be able to use these programs just fine.
See screenshot and error message attached.

I am using
WinXP with 2.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual,
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5K SE Rev 1.xx mobo,
2048 Megabytes Installed Memory
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT [Display adapter]
Realtek High Definition Audio

Please help.