Turns out that coreldraw 12 does not work very well on anything other than XP even in comparability mode. So i created a VM for XP on my windows 7 laptop and installed the software on that. It works wonderfully, the program no longer crashes. I might get a cheap computer and install XP on it just so it has a dedicated computer.
Just felt like sharing 
Does it the hardware dictating the soft, or the other way around ? not tempted by Smoothie upgrade …
good time to have a think, before buying old PC.
It’s the software having the issues, it does not work well on windows 7 but it ran just fine in my XP VM. I got some nice pieces created with it once i was using the XP VM. Does that answer your question?
I am happy if you are happy ;-))
just reacting on your future expense, …and possibilty to do otherwise than old stuff.
I’m using CorelDraw 11 on windows 7 starter, on a terrible atom based mini-PC - works fine.
I have 12 running on Windows 10 without a problem
Running two copies. Host running win 7 and a win 7 vm, both x64, without any problems. Maybe yours is conflicting with other installed software.
The program runs wonderfully on my windows xp VM. I am still learning how to use it correctly, learning the power levels and how to make things line up correctly.