Yes, everything applies except the part about Win 7/Vista.
So definitely delete the /tmp/ contents.
Other ideas are a bad USB=>RS232 adapter. Prolific-based adapters cause all sort of strangeness, although I have never seen that error caused by it.
I guess it could be a virus checker. Turn it off if you have one and see what happens. We recommend Windows security essentials (free from Microsoft). It does its job without creating any grief.
Try clean-booting your machine using MSCONFIG.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796
Try turning off the callbook interfaces, web clusters, telnet, etc. and see if the problem goes away.
Unfortunately it is just detective work.
73,
DH