Dear Robert, I doubt that it is a general issue as I regulary try on various XP combinations (even today) and therefore guess that it is a local problem on your single machine.
As you have other images and older VM's floating around it may be an issue that you start the image with an old outdated VM. Note that when you double click the image to start the Windows OS will use the executable (VM) which is associated with the *.image extension. If you had older VM installations (Squeak or other) this may conflict. Just to make sure can you please exactly follow these steps: 1. download and extract http://files.pharo.org/image/30/latest.zip in a fresh directory 2. download and extract http://files.pharo.org/vm/pharo/win/stable.zip into the same directory 3. go to this directory and drag the Pharo image "Pharo-30782.image" onto the "Pharo.exe" to make sure the system is exactly started with this combination and no other VM or image is involved Then tell us if this works or (if it still fails) what the system reprorts to you initially. You should also check: in World Menu -> "Tools" -> "SystemReporter", there you should check the entry "VM general" which will tell you excactly the VM you are running on. If you select all entries in this "System Reporter" you can send the report here so we know more about your environment. Thx T.