Vista - photo gallery com surrogate error

I just bought (6 days ago) a new HP Compaq Presario with Vista Home Premium already installed on it. When I try to view my jpeg picture files using photo gallery, photo gallery freezes and an error message of “Com Surrogate has stopped working” displays. I called HP support with no luck. I also googled the error/problem and installed a vista codec package, turned off data execution prevention on dll host and turned off thumbnail preview… ALL WITH NO LUCK.

My husband is in the military and currently deployed. I bought this computer mainly to talk to him using skype and to look at pictures he mails to me on a disc. I am so frustrated that no one is able to help me with this issue. I am almost to the point of returning this computer to the store. Can anyone help?

follow the instructions in the document com.doc and let me know.

Thanks, I tried that and it didn't change anything, I still get the error message.