I am running vista home premium 64-bit OS

When I perform a start menu search, OFTEN I find what I am looking for. If I don't find it then I have to do an advanced search, and I GET an ERROR message. Across the top of the error message window it says "Microsoft visual c++ runtime library.

The error message says"This application has requested the Runtime to terminate in an unusual way"

Then a window opens saying "Windows explorer has stopped working" Then it says "Windows explorer is restarting."
After the restart has finished, several of the icons in the system tray are gone. A look in task manager on the processes tab, shows the programs, in most cases, are still running just not accessible from the system tray any longer. So I use the processes tab to close prog. so I can restart them and get icons back in system tray to have easy access to the programs, which I use continually.

This is a long standing problem that has been mostly a NUISANCE up until now. Up until now the search results were still present after I restarted the programs so I could find what I am looking for. Now when the window, that said windows was restarting, closes so does the search results. So the effect is that I am no longer able to do an advanced search of my computer.

I looked in uninstall prog. for the control panel and there are 7 entries for MS virtual C++ 2005 and 8 entries for MS virtual C++ 2008. I know there is a 2010 version of MS virtual C++ but it is not installed on my computer so I haven't installed it.

Can anyone help me with this? Thank you.
Check DEP settings. It should be set to .Turn on DEP for Essential Windows Programs and Services only. Try running System File Checker on command prompt.

a. Type ‘cmd’ in the Start Search box. Right click on cmd in the Program list and then select the option Run as administrator.

Note: If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.

b. Type the following command, and then press ENTER: sfc /scannow


Thank you for your suggestions. As your suggested, I checked the DEP settings. They were set at : Turn on DEP for Essential Windows Programs and Services only, as you said they should be.

Next I ran system file checker and received the following message: Windows resource protection FOUND corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.log.

The wording suggests that some files were fixed, if not all of them. So I tried to do a start menu search of my computer. When I went to the advanced search the search terminated in the manner I described in my initial post.

I opened the CBS.log file and there are pages of text describing the system file check I ran, none of which I understood.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thank you again for your help.