Photoshop :: 5.5 Not Starting

Photoshop 5.5 wont start any more for me

It's a fresh install of XP - all updated now &
naturally fresh install of Pshop which did work for a while..
Machine is new, dualcore intel, 2GB ram, 2 hard drives.
Was wondering was dualcore a problem (it's new for me as well as for pshop 5.5 - but it wasnt a problem initially, so..)

I can think of 2 things I did before this problem arose -

1) installed Adobe Illustrator 8

2) changed windows page file to a partition on second harddrive & set photoshops scratchdiscs to same partition
[unfortunately dont know which I did first & if it worked immediately afterwards...]

I wasnt using it much for a while (so it could be the fault of something completely different),
when I tried to restart it gets as far as
"initialising icc engine"
then i get the needs to close & contact microsoft window which
shows the info but doesnt let you copy it (damn ms)
does say [I've added the number of noughts]:

code: 0xc0000005 [6x0]Flags: 0x00000000 [8x0]
Record: 0x0000000000000000 [16x0]Address: 0x00000000038da129 [9x0]

I tried uninstalling & reinstalling -
it hasn't helped - exactly same problem

the 5.5 readme file says:

Quote:

Adobe Photoshop software's initialization file (photos55.ini) is located in the Adobe Photoshop 5.5 Settings folder under the directory where Photoshop is installed. The preferences file (Adobe Photoshop 5.5 Prefs.PSP) is also located in the same Prefs directory. the preferences file doesnt exist - prob cause I uninstalled/reinstalled & the programme hasnt started since