[quote="leo"]Update: After reading stories from other developers who have seen similar problems with XP SP2, the issue is likely a bug in XP, which was fixed years ago in SP3, that causes the OS to crash when an exe has a manifest (which controls various Windows features and how the app can use them) that includes things SP2 does not understand. We can't change the manifest because we need it the way it is to enable certain features on Windows 7.
Install SP3 to fix your OS.[/quote]
Here's the Microsoft KB article about the XP SP2 bug, along with a hotfix for it (which you'll already have if you've installed SP3 sometime in the last three years, which is why XP SP3 is OK):