When Acrobat loads, it places temporary files in your local Temp folder. It does not delete them after installation! I had 65,565 temp files! After I deleted them, Acrobat seems to work just fine.
Go To: Start-Search-All Files and Folders and enter "acr*.tmp". This will tell you where your Temp folder is located. Go to that folder and delete all the temp files.
Did you "upgrade" to WinXP or do a complete, clean install of the new O/S. The latter is highly advised.
If you have "... the same exact problem ..." then you are running under WinXP. You should install and operate all Adobe applications when logged on as administrator. You need to do a complete, removal and de-fragg then a clean re-install in safe mode.