rocketedcolin

i'm using xp hope someone can help, everytime i turn on the machine it gives me this message saying that " the application failed to initialize properly 0xc0000142 click on ok to terminate! i do this an it pops back up straight away? i've tried to boot from xp cd, and no joy??? (that could be the way i'm trying to do it) tried safe mode but the message still appears, i have also tried to open other files to save them to memory stick but it wont let me, i have three years of uni work that i've been "meaning to back up!!" is there a way to save my work and then wipe the whole computer and start again.....is there a set number of times i can use my windows product number??? all help greatfully recieved!!! god bless colin