An interesting problem

I hope I can get some help on this problem. I have never encountered anything like it.

Yesterday, I was trying to install Dragon Standard edition, and the program wouldn't boot, and it gave an error code that indicated my processor wasn't SSE2 compliant.
All the data I've been able to find indicates it is. (my chipset is AMD64 2800+).

So I called Nuance tech support and they told me to download a file(spchapi.exe) from the Nuance site. Start the installation and reboot the computer. The last thing I saw was a C++ runtime error from TrendMicro, my AV program, before the boot.

When the computer was booting up it froze at the Windows Screen, but it would boot in safe mode obviously. I tried everything I could to diagnose the problem. Nothing worked. I have all my data backed up on Acronis, but on a recovery attempt, the exact same thing happened, a freeze up on the Windows Screen.

This morning I performed a long reformat on the drive, and did a complete fresh install on the cleaned drive. Windows still gets hung on the Windows screen in the same exact spot, and I get it to boot up in safe mode. Does anyone have any ideas what's going on? Thanks.