DPP crashes when white balancing files

I've searched the forum and found similar problems but none exactly the same and none with an applicable solution...

We have used DPP on our Windows XP machine for years with no problems at all. However, after we upgraded about 6 months ago to the latest version in order to work with files from our Canon 7D and 5D Mark II, it has been crashing.

99.9999% of the crashes occur when we are in the Edit Image Window and we use the white balance eye-dropper tool. It will work fine for a few images and then crash. Then it will work fine to one image and crash, Then it will work great for half a day before crashing.... it is completely random and very frustrating.

Has anyone else experienced this problem and/or found a solution? We have upgraded the software with each new release, including the latest from April 2011, and we continue to experience it. The cpu is a Quad Core with 4GB of RAM running XP SP3.

Photo editing is a processor-intense procedure that creates a lot of heat. If you haven't cleaned out your computer in a while I would try that first. Make sure all of your fans are working and that they are not gunked up. Especially the processor fan.

That's about all I can think of. If you were having issues with other applications or the occasional blue-screen I would suspect a defective memory module, but you didn't mention those symptoms. It could possibly be a bad video card as well, but hard to say without more information/symptoms.

I would be thinking about CPU problems if I was getting more crashes in other software. The problem has been isolated to any version of DPP since 3.7 and 99.99999999999% of the time it is only when using the white-balance eye dropper.

I would happily just go back to version 3.6 because it worked beautifully but unfortunately the older versions won't recognize 7D and 5DII RAW files.