How do make Inkscape work on Windows XP?

[EimGhey]

The place I work is incredibly cheap and believes our art program can function without the latest tech... So I am forced to work with outdated version of windows...      Every time I draw in Inkscape it crashes with the error, "this program has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unusual way..."

I need to get this working or end up using Adobe... 

[brynn]

Welcome to Inkscape Community!

How much RAM do you have available?  Without any additional information, I would guess that the file size is larger than you have RAM to handle it.
How large is the file?

(If using Windows XP means you only have 2 gb RAM (or maybe even less?), which restricts you to only working in smaller files, maybe that would be a good argument for your business to upgrade?)

Does this happen with a new blank document?  Or only in existing files? 
Does it crash when you are using some particular tool?  Or it crashes randomly?   

If you can give us any other clues -- anything you might notice right before it crashes, it would help us find the problem.                                                     

[Grobe]

I think I also had similar issues ages ago - sre you working with a very old version of Inkscape?