Word 2003 crashes when icon on task bar is clicked

[Koons]

My issue is just about fully described on the subject line. Sometimes,
if I have the application open and I accidentally touch the document
icon on the start bar, Word closes without giving me a chance to save
my work. That includes any other Word file that I may have open. I
have also noticed some issues of compatibility with Outlook (sometimes
Outlook tells me that Word is not available as my editor), so I don't
know if these two issues are in any way related. Both applications
came together in the 2003 suite.

Thanks