Hi Folks,
As promised, here's an update on this issue. Well 1st, to prevent Aaron from getting inundated with requests for a free support incident, we found out that MS offers everyone 2 free support incidents, before being asked for payment. That goes for XP Home and Pro, but I don't know if it's 2 free incidents ever, or yearly, or what. I had no idea MS offered free tech support
So MS Technical Support came to the same conclusion as SpyDie and others here at Lzd.

Way to go guys! This user account has somehow become corrupted. MS recommended creating a new user account and walked me through transferring all my files to the new account. But this account contains a great deal of personalized display and other settings which will take me literally hours to reset in the new account. To be honest, I think I would rather just use the new account for downloading. I'm not doing so much downloading that would make it inconvenient. And that's where things stand at this moment. I don't know, maybe I will work on all those settings little by little, and eventually move to the new account....we'll see....
I have to say, though, that I find it quite frustrating, that the exact cause of the problem (exactly which files or components are corrupted) can't be identified. I mean, if there is no solution to any given problem, I can handle that (witness my health -- no cure). But it's hard for me to believe that no one can figure out what's causing this problem.
For this reason, I'm thinking of posting this problem in another support forum. I have not definitely decided to, but if I do, I'll post a link in this thread, should anyone want to follow the saga
If I do decide to post elsewhere, this should not in any way be interpretted as my dissatisfaction with LzD members, or with MS Technical Support. In my opinion, you have all given me excellent advice and support, and I could not ask for better.
LzD is still my Hero Forum! If I do, it will be because I want to present this problem to more people, in hopes there be someone "out there" who can point to exactly what is corrupt about this user account.
And of course, if anyone here at LzD comes up with something, I will continue to monitor this thread. Please feel free to post!
So finally, one last time, I want to say:
Thanks to everyone who posted, thanks for the time some of you spent discussing and working on the problem offline from LzD. And especially thanks to Aaron for offering me the MS support incident! You guys are THE BEST!!!