Games won't start because of exe problem

ok,
So if it helps, these are my systems specs;

amd 2800+ cpu
1gb of ram
(AGP)x1950pro turbo edition
600w psu
sound blaster live sound card

I am having a problem with the exe on a few different games like, call of duty 4, gird demo, and another on called nitro stunt racing. so click the start icon on any of these games and the screen turns black like it is going to start the application, but it goes back to the windows screen and says;

(the file name).exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. we are sorry for the inconvenience.
the rest is talking about reporting it to Microsoft. and then I click don't send, and it does the same thing if I
do it again.

It does the same thing on the three games that I have mentioned I do not have internet on my personal computer so I know it isn't any antivirus program. here is a link to other people having the same kinda problem.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en [...] rt=10&sa=N

Any help is much a appreciated.

Life626