user.exe warning page

when opening up any new programs ive downloaded, or installed, a thing comes up saying that this program had perfomed an illegal operation and will be shut down, and then when i go to the detail section it says that the program has caused a divide error in module user.exe, and then i cant open the new program what have i done and what can i do to fix it?

 

Update comctl32.dll
What version of Internet Explorer do you have? and what version of comctl32.dll?

This file can be updated by updating Internet Explorer.

 

I am curious as to what this file is for. Can you tell me. I have been searching the posts because of a "user.exe" error I am getting from a program while trying to load/update data in this program--this error will then close this program and the computer has to be rebooted in order to get back into the program. The OS is WIN2000 and this error does not occur if I logon to the machine as a local administrator in which case, I can update the data fine. The computer is on a Network. The updates are A: disk containing current medical articles/info for a user. Is there anyway to update this file, comctl32.dll without updating I.E. I currently have ver. 5.5, SP 2.