What you're seeing is a well-known bug that MS says they can't reproduce
(...) and so have no plans to fix. (OE6 in WinXP SP2 is really the end of
the road for OE.)

You *might* see this behavior more often if you're still using the default
Main Identity. Try one or more of your accounts in a new Named Identity
(File Identities Add new identity). Once everything's working to your
satisfaction, (1) compact all folders in the old identity, (2) import
messages from the old identity into the new one, and then (3) delete the old
one (File Identities Manage Identities).

To avoid corruption:

- Don't use Inbox or Sent Items to archive messages. Move them to local
folders created for this purpose.

- Empty Deleted Items folder daily.

- Disable Background Compacting [not available in SP2] and frequently
perform a manual compact of all OE folders while "working offline". More at
http://www.insideoe.com/files/maintain.htm

- WinXP SP2 only: Do not shut down your machine while Windows is
automatically compacting your message store.

- Your anti-virus application's email scanning feature can also cause such
corruption. Disable it. It provides no additional protection.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin; DTS-L.org



Jeff wrote:
PA, I have not tried that yet but going directly to a newsgroup brings my
toolbar back to normal so I'm betting that your rec will do it too. Once
it
does it again, I will try your suggestion. If so, any clues as to how I
can
fix it? Thanks!

"PA Bear" wrote in message
...
With Folder pane enabled (View Layout Folder List): When this
happens,
does clicking on *Outlook Express* at the top of Folders pane and
returning back to the folder in which the problem occurred resolve the
problem?
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin; DTS-L.org

Jeff wrote:
For no obvious reason to me, my OE 6 customized toolbar reverts back to
a
toolbar with only a handful of icons.. If I close it out and restart
it,
my toolbar returns to normal. This problem has become a pain in the
butt
because it seems to happen several times a day. It did it a few minutes
ago, just before I started to open this NG, and then it reverted back to
normal right after. Any clues to what might be going on or how I might
fix
it?

PS: It's not a virus or spyware because I have NIS 2007, along with a
couple of spyware packages (Ewido Anti-Spyware and Ad-Aware SE
Personal).
All virus definitions update automatically and a full system scan is
conducted once per month.

Thanks!