Keep getting "(program).exe has encountered error it must be closed" Error

[det0x]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this. But ever since last night (dont know exactly what i did) ive been getting error messages on almost all my programs. Anyone know the problem to this?

I have all the newest Windows Updates

Asus A7N8-E Deluxe
AMD 3200+
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
1x Corsair 512MB PC-3200
Maxtor 60GB Sata HD

I keep getting "nameofprogram.exe has encountered a problem..."

Anyone got any ideas of what might be causing almost all my to programs to crash on start up?? I can easily run the programs by just moving the window aside. But this is getting on my last nerves. Ive been trying to figure it out since last night, ran 2 diffrent registry fixers and adaware and cant seem to find any fixes.

Some examples of programs that crash on me: Firefox, AIM, Steam, UTorrent, MIRC

 

[Eva_Unit_0]

sounds to me like an unstable overclock, or perhaps a stick of ram that's going out. If you've got that box overclocked, back it down a bit and see what happens. If you're not overclocked, then try running memtest and see if the memory has problems.

 

[det0x]

How would you go about running a memory test?

 

[Eva_Unit_0]

as an easy test you can download and run this program, but if you want to be really thorough you should use the bootable version.