First of all this isn’t the support section, so you might want to scroll a bit more down next time
I don’t know what kind of machine you’re running but in 2.55 you’ll have to change one of the windows (temporarly) to the user preferences, this can be done by clicking on the lil’ icon at the header of a window with the up and down triangles in it. Then go to the input tab and change your preference, you can then save your preferences with the save as default button.
The Left/Right click as well as the Turntable/Trackball options are under the “Input” heading of the User Preferences window. Not sure what’s going on with the crashing. I’d delete all your 2.55 prefs and try again.