The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)

I recently tried to run SmartFTP and it now crashes on startup with 2 consecutive messages: "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application"...
It has been a couple weeks since I used SmartFTP, but it worked fine at that time. Since then, there have been a few Windows Updates and of course the Sobig Worm, which I did not get... I tried first upgrading, then an uninstall / re-install of SmartFTP. Also tried the development version. Same problem.
OS is WinXP Pro. PC is Toshiba Laptop. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

If you have "Tiny Personal Firewall" installed, uninstall it and install "Kerio Firewall".

-Mat