Tips for Premiere Elements 7?

[Hareoic]

So thanks to not reading the product reviews beforehand, I'm stuck with Premiere Elements instead of Premiere Pro. Now, considering it's a step up from what I had anyway, I would normally be overjoyed, but PE7 actually manages to be worse than Windows Movie Maker in the most time consuming category: Stability. Elements takes more time to start up than I'm comfortable with, and I've found that you can actually become unable to move forward in a project because every single action done while the project is loaded, no matter how slight, will cause the program to crash, possibly without even giving an error message. Even Movie Maker let you get in about half a dozen actions before freezing if the project was huge.

Thus, my request is this: Can somebody advise me on how to minimize my likelihood of encountering errors (especially the ones that shut down the program without a word barely after starting said project)? What do I need to do to keep the program from crashing in general?

[LivingFlame]

What are your computer's specs? It sounds like it's just struggling to handle Elements.

[Hareoic]

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Service Pack 3
System model: Dell DXG051
x86-based PC
Processor: Intel Pentium D CPU (3.00GHz)
2 Gigs RAM
Virtual Memory: 3067 (initial) - 4048 (maximum)
Graphics: nVidia GeForce 7900 GS
Sound: Creative X-Fi Audio Processor (WDM) / Realtek AC'97 Audio
Hard Drive: ST375064 0AS SCSI Disk Device (it's one of the Seagate Barracuda drives)
Size: 698.64 GB / 468 GB free


Yeah, I really don't think it's the computer, the minimum requirements were far below this.

[Hareoic]

Something that might be unrelated but still concerns me: Is my nVidia graphics drivers entry in the Add/Remove Programs application supposed to be 1,500 MB? It seems a bit excessive...