When I download I receive the file but when I go to execute it I am getting an error message just as it gets to 100% 'winExec failed: return=161'. Why?

This can occur if a process is holding system files open. An orphan process is a process which died (probably crashed) but did not completely exit. You can use wintop.exe to find these on WIN95 or TaskManager on NT. If you cannot kill these processes, try a fresh reboot (not a restart) to clear your system.