Stilly -

Surprised you missed it in my so brief and concise postings, but I posted a link to "your" thread (at 4:02 PM) just a little above your last one.

Problem is that Sorcha is using WinME, not 2K, and the updates have "different content." I can't find anything that says the same thing can happen in ME, or even that the 2K SR3 "Access and Defaults" controls that bit you are even installed with ME updates; but her local expert might be able to tie it to her problem. He'd be the only one in a position to "follow the trails" through her machine.

Most of the recent Win versions let you pick any of several "layouts," all the way from "Classic," through "html based," to the evil "Active Desktop," each with its own problems. It's very difficult to do "long-distance" diagnosis. Too many possibilities.

With a little faith that the local GEEK will come back with something, my recommendation would be that she confine her own efforts to "standard" repairs:
Run full Virus Scan.
Do Disk Cleanup (Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Cleanup.
Scan Disk (it's not much used in 2K and XP, is it on the menu in ME?)
If browser opens (apparently it does) clean up Internet Temps and offline content.
Take a look at the built in diagnostic tools. (see KB article linked above). I didn't see any one that looked too promising, but it seldom hurts to step through them, even if you don't find anything to fix.

The icon cache regeneration is not likely to destroy any symptoms that would help later trouble shooting, so is probably safe to try.

I wouldn't worry about attempting to defrag at this point. It's not likely to help, and could make it harder to trace what's going on when the GEEK gets back.

If enough things work to do it, it might be worth spending the time while waiting for the pro to come back to BACK UP AS MUCH DATA AS POSSIBLE - NOW! (Don't forget to Export email and address books if you decide to do some backup.) Unfortunately, backup isn't too practical unless the CD burner works, or you've got at least one of the large ZIP drives working.

John