I'm seeing the same thing, but not involving the ripper. Boot, tools/options, wait about 3 secs - crash.
Win XP Pro, SP2 (cleanly installed last night, with full MS security patches installed, and not much else on the machine yet).
I'm can attach the crash info from the MS error report dialog, if that would be useful.
-Jeff
Media Center 12.0.267 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1398 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 235 MB
Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.11 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping / Drive D: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: Yes / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive D: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-105 Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:16 MaxSpeed:16 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No /
Portable Device Info
Removed devices:
Interface Plugins:
Library Server (Active)
TiVo Server (Active)
UPnP Server (Active)