I am finding your responses very illuminating. I hope that you do not get frustrated and bail out...

All programs are working properly. I have only a few in the startup folder and all of them are up and running correctly. So it must be something in the background that is not serious to the operating of the computer, but serious enough to be an annoyance... I may be off base, but I have a gut feeling that it is a "cleanup" issue... something is not getting the message that the prog has gone on to another task, and a footprint is left on the task bar.

I have a wee prog called StopIt by MacDevelopment [ http://www.McDev.com ] It identified two instance of explorer.exe running at the same time. I killed one, the task bar disappeared and did not return. I went to StopIt again, and the second instance was still there, but no task bar. I killed it too. I returned to Task Manager and fired up explorer.exe again, and then returned to StopIt. Neither the ghost image was there, nor was the extra version of explorer.exe This seemed to accomplish the same end as the debugging of explorer.exe in Process Explorer.

I am going to delete my system restore points again. It did not work to eliminate the return of it last time...and reboot. I'll return here in a bit, to edit this note with what happened.

In the meantime, here is some other reading as to what was previously done so I don't lose that info.

The Dr. was brought into the discussion but it provided no opportunity to do anything with it...no command options to have it produce anything.

I went to the *.log file and opened it up... there did not seem to be any pattern as to a particular "program" but there seemed to be a consistent complaint:

"WARNING: Stack unwind information not available. Following frames may be wrong. *** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for c:\windows\srchasst\srchui.dll - "

The *.dll reference was different each time, but the warning and error seemed to be the same... I suppose that I will need to direct whatever to the Symbol file. I did download the symbols for the debugger some time back, but did not know what to do with them. Should I go someplace in the register to enter a command to go someplace to find them...and do I need to do much with the folder in which the file is?

Here is an example of the last complaint in Dr. Watson's log... I checked out your MS reference which was supposed to assist in the translation but it was no help, because what it described, did not appear to be here... Nor, does it plainly describe where one problem's record starts and stops and another starts and stops...

e.g.


*----> State Dump for Thread Id 0x638 <----*

eax=00000000 ebx=020efec0 ecx=00000002 edx=00000002 esi=00000104 edi=00d2e724
eip=79004c44 esp=00d2e2ac ebp=00d2e338 iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na po nc
cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00000246

*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found. Defaulted to export symbols for C:\WINDOWS\system32\mscoree.dll -
function: mscoree!CreateConfigStream
79004c2b 00538b add [ebx-0x75],dl
79004c2e 9d popfd
79004c2f a801 test al,0x1
79004c31 0000 add [eax],al
79004c33 56 push esi
79004c34 57 push edi
79004c35 8bbdac010000 mov edi,[ebp+0x1ac]
79004c3b 894580 mov [ebp-0x80],eax
79004c3e 895d88 mov [ebp-0x78],ebx
79004c41 8d4802 lea ecx,[eax+0x2]
FAULT ->79004c44 668b10 mov dx,[eax] ds:0023:00000000=????
79004c47 40 inc eax
79004c48 40 inc eax
79004c49 6685d2 test dx,dx
79004c4c 75f6 jnz mscoree!CreateConfigStream+0x5f3 (79004c44)
79004c4e 2bc1 sub eax,ecx
79004c50 d1f8 sar eax,1
79004c52 8bf0 mov esi,eax
79004c54 8bc3 mov eax,ebx
79004c56 8d4802 lea ecx,[eax+0x2]
79004c59 668b10 mov dx,[eax]

*----> Stack Back Trace <----*
WARNING: Stack unwind information not available. Following frames may be wrong.
ChildEBP RetAddr Args to Child
00d2e338 77dd6fbf 00d2e450 00000aa6 00d2e448 mscoree!CreateConfigStream+0x5f3
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ADVAPI32!RegCloseKey+0x3cf

*----> Raw Stack Dump <----*
0000000000d2e2ac c0 fe 0e 02 04 01 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0000000000d2e2bc 00 00 00 00 c0 fe 0e 02 - a2 3b 00 79 35 00 38 00 .........;.y5.8.
0000000000d2e2cc 42 00 43 00 37 00 44 00 - 34 00 33 00 7d 00 5c 00 B.C.7.D.4.3.}.\.
0000000000d2e2dc 49 00 6e 00 70 00 72 00 - 6f 00 63 00 53 00 65 00 I.n.p.r.o.c.S.e.
0000000000d2e2ec 2c e4 d2 00 fe e1 90 7c - 6c e3 d2 00 28 e3 d2 00 ,......|l...(...
0000000000d2e2fc 6c fb 90 7c 71 fb 90 7c - 6c e3 d2 00 fe e1 90 7c l..|q..|l......|
0000000000d2e30c 2c e4 d2 00 04 e3 d2 00 - 0a e2 90 7c 08 ea d2 00 ,..........|....
0000000000d2e31c 18 ee 90 7c 78 fb 90 7c - ff ff ff ff 71 fb 90 7c ...|x..|....q..|
0000000000d2e32c b4 6f dd 77 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .o.w............
0000000000d2e33c bf 6f dd 77 50 e4 d2 00 - a6 0a 00 00 48 e4 d2 00 .o.wP.......H...
0000000000d2e34c 40 e4 d2 00 a6 0a 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 6c e3 d2 00 @...........l...
0000000000d2e35c 0e 00 00 00 a6 0a 00 00 - 74 e3 d2 00 00 00 00 00 ........t.......
0000000000d2e36c c8 05 91 7c 00 30 12 00 - 40 e4 d2 00 51 05 91 7c ...|[email protected]..|
0000000000d2e37c e8 15 09 00 6d 05 91 7c - 04 61 e4 77 00 61 e4 77 ....m..|.a.w.a.w
0000000000d2e38c 00 00 00 00 c0 e3 d2 00 - 3d fb 90 7c 50 e4 d2 00 ........=..|P...
0000000000d2e39c 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 - 6c fb 90 7c 71 fb 90 7c ........l..|q..|
0000000000d2e3ac 00 00 00 00 50 e4 d2 00 - 3d fb 90 7c ac e3 d2 00 ....P...=..|....
0000000000d2e3bc 89 8b 00 00 18 e4 d2 00 - 18 ee 90 7c 78 fb 90 7c ...........|x..|
0000000000d2e3cc ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 - fd 51 89 09 1c e4 d2 00 .........Q......
0000000000d2e3dc 7d d7 02 79 90 02 00 00 - d4 57 02 79 00 00 00 00 }..y.....W.y....