Odd bug resulting in death:

Floor 5 or so, caverns. Had 20 health, and was at full.  Standing on a hanging platform that moves laterally across a chasm, but it was stationary.  Charged a 1-3 dmg ice wand to hit a bat on the other side.  Let it loose and died instantly  

This is destroying me - I'm unable to play either version since I get an error as soon as I start the game - nothing like the previously mentioned errors, however - just a general "Spelunky has encountered a problem and needs to close."

Error signature:
AppName: spelunky_0_98_1.exe    AppVer: 0.98.1.0    ModName: kernel32.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.3119    Offset: 00012a5b

Aha - I tried running some other games, and I get the same exact error with them as well.  The ones I tried were Rock Boshers, Xoldiers, and Kryzta.  I believe all of these are game maker games, correct?

All of these games ran fine not long ago, and I recently did a bunch of cleaning up to free space on my C: partition, using CCleaner and uninstalling a bunch of random programs.  I'm sure I somehow deleted a shared file or regestry entry or somesuch...  DOes anyone know a good way to repair something like this?

I as thinking about my problem - does the configuration merely create a config file? Perhaps someone could upload theirs (preferably in windowed mode) and I could try using it.

Looks like it's just text:

"settings.cfg"

Thanks a bunch, but no dice, unfortunately...

I as thinking about my problem - does the configuration merely create a config file? Perhaps someone could upload theirs (preferably in windowed mode) and I could try using it.

This is destroying me - I'm unable to play either version since I get an error as soon as I start the game - nothing like the previously mentioned errors, however - just a general "Spelunky has encountered a problem and needs to close."

When you say as soon as you start the game, do you mean before the config screen even shows up?

Correct, I haven't seen any config screen.

So any ideas about this Derek?

Fun fact: Clay Perry, who coined the term Spelunking in the 40's was my Great Uncle!

Correct, I haven't seen any config screen.

This is destroying me - I'm unable to play either version since I get an error as soon as I start the game - nothing like the previously mentioned errors, however - just a general "Spelunky has encountered a problem and needs to close."

Did you extract the contents of the folder?

The rar/zip? Of course.  Don't suppose you mean the sound folder or some other mysterious folder I'm not getting?

This is destroying me - I'm unable to play either version since I get an error as soon as I start the game - nothing like the previously mentioned errors, however - just a general "Spelunky has encountered a problem and needs to close."

Error signature:
AppName: spelunky_0_98_1.exe    AppVer: 0.98.1.0    ModName: kernel32.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.3119    Offset: 00012a5b

I'll post the extended error report if you like - but please help me figure out what's going on! 

WinXP, running at 1920x1200 if resolution might have something to do with it (as with other lower resolution games that force fullscreen, etc), but I've tried on my CRT at 1024x768 with the same result.