I have a Pentium III 450Mhz with 128mb RAM running Windows ME. When I try to open or save to a directory other than C:MY DOCUMENTS (default) the following error occurs in the application (Winword given as an example): ‘Winword has caused an error in KERNEL32.DLL. Winword will now close. If you continue to experience problems try restarting your computer’. However, the problem persists on restarting the computer. The only convenient way to open a document is through Windows Explorer. Can you please advise how I can fix the problem?

This is quite a tricky problem to diagnose, as it occurs in more than one application. The problem is unlikely to be with the actual KERNEL32.DLL file, as the System File Protection feature in Windows ME should stop any changes happening to the file, which could cause it to corrupt. It is quite hard to fix problems such as this, which are normally not recognised problems. That is because they are only present on a few computers due to their unique configuration, setup, etc… All I can suggest in your situation is to attempt to reinstall Windows in the hope this will remove any conflicts or fix any system problems. I am sorry to say that if that doesn’t work you may need to find some hands-on expert assistance to sort out your system.