Some very SLIGHT changes to my original situation.
I have removed Firefox completely and then reinstalled it. I've actually done that two ways. I loaded a previous version with no favorable results to report AND I have loaded a copy from a different machine.
When I tried to run that copy, I was informed that there was a later version (which I knew) and I was given the opportunity to load that. It loaded version 17.
Prior to doing any of that, I had checked task manager to make certain that there was no Mozilla software running. There was none. Actually, there was nothing (applications) running.
Same problem with the new load. Somewhere in my research I that read something about the icon on the task bar not working. So I deleted the icon from the task bar and ran it from the "All Programs" listing. Same problem.
What is this I see? "Run As Administrator". Well since I am both the user and the administrator, I ought to be able to do that without danger.
Aah, It is clumsy (involves a couple more clicks) but it works.
It comes up from both a cold boot and after being up and running but only if I "Run as Administrator".
This has to be something internal to my machine and likely something that involves more than just Firefox. Rights and Privileges seems like a starting point, but.....that can have far reaching consequences.
In the hours before this problem was noticed, I had been attempting to use Microsoft Media Center. Microsoft instructs me, in the help files, to reload Microsoft Media Center. I have that on disk, the same disk where I got W7. I had more problems getting W7 running than you can imagine. Even though that problem turned out to be a bad HD, I am not going to reload Windows. I'll just do without MMC.
It really galls me to abandon a problem without fixing it but that is what I am going to do with this one.
Unless someone comes up with a "sure fix".
