I recently, successfully, installed my laptop with a wireless card and connection, and then networked it to my desktop printer. It all works fine, but now the laptop doesn't run Word or Corel properly. The desktop is running ME, but I had no problems the first run through. Any suggestions? Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Not sure why you are implying that the desktop PC is somehow entering into the laptop's problem, and it's unclear just how Word & Corel are no longer running "properly", or what the "first run through" was that apparently worked ok. Confusing. Can you be more specific?

Ok, sorry bout that. I installed a wireless network in my home. The laptop was the first installed, then the desktop. It all worked fine. Then I "networked" the laptop to be able to use the printer that's attached to the desktop. Again, it worked fine. Ever since that first "go around", the first day, the word processing programs on the laptop will not run. They start up fine, and after a few seconds I get error messages saying "Microsoft Word has encountered and error and needs to close". Same message for Corel, or Works. Now I did also download all the new patches for XP from Microsoft's site, including the virus updates, but why would that screw up all my programs? Everything on the desktop works fine, I don't know, I'm at a loss, hopefully this is specific enough.

By "networking" the laptop to be able to use the printer, I assume that you mean you enabled printer sharing on the desktop, and the drivers on the laptop. Did the problem applications on the laptop work for that first day even after you installed the updates? Have you tried reinstalling Word or any of the others that don't run?