I installed krita and it opens up fine, but as soon as I try to draw something with my mouse or wacom tablet, krita instantly shuts down.
I am using windows 7

Have you tried turning OpenGL setting off? If turning it off stops crashing, then it could be graphic card/driver issue.
https://userbase.kde.org/Krita/Manual/P ... es/Display

works. thank you for the quick response