So, the recent apple software update was an utter disaster. It caused crashes, system melts, and Microsoft Office apps failed to launch. After pulling my hair out all morning, I located this fix finally, and things are finally back to normal. Turns out the problem was the QuickTime 7.2 update. Here’s the post to fix the problem, if you’re having the same frustration:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20070716100311118