Word, PP and Excel crash at start with office 2003

[Teddy]

Hi.

I've got XP SP3 and Office 2003 with all the latest updates applied. When I
click on any program (word, excel, powerpoint) they begin to start up then
crash. The error report message comes up offering to recover my documents and
I must either enter into an endless loop of crashes or give up.

However, if I click on an existing word, excel or powerpoint file, or say
normal.dot, then the apps start up fine.

I've reinstalled with no improvement. Any ideas are appreciated.