"fflei" wrote in message
...
Hi Frank, thanks for replying.

However, I don't think I made myself clear - I should have explained that
I have used OE for years and I do know how to customize a toolbar. The
problem is, that whatever I do, OE undoes it the next time a Hotmail
account is selected.

What has happened is that about four days ago, after running without any
major hitches for about 3 years, on a fully updated XP Pro SP2
system,without any intervention from me, the Hotmail toolbars disappeared.
When I looked at the Customize toolbar dialogue, it showed only 4
separators. I put back the buttons I wanted and everything was fine until
I the next time when a hotmail account was selected, and then the buttons
disappeared and only the separators remain.

The first time it happened, all toolbars were affected, then I closed it
down and restarted and since then (and several reboots later) the POP3 and
Newsgroup toolbars are functioning properly, and so are the toolbars in
all message forms, including hotmail.

The only other significant event of the day was that two hotmail servers
were unavailable for a quite a time (apologies from Microsoft, so again
not my fault!) and I wondered if there was any connection between the two
events - I am stumped as to what to do and wondered if anyone else had had
the same experience.


It might be a security program blocking the Registry change it needs to
make. A few, but not all, of the programs now doing this a
Ad-aware's Ad-Watch
IBM Access Connections
McAfee VirusScan and/or Antispyware
Norton AV
Spyware Blaster
Spybot Tools IE Tweaks
Spybot- Teatimer
Spysweeper
Spyware Doctor
Windows Defender
Zone Alarm (free) 6.5 Reported to be fixed in later versions.

In the case of Zone Alarm 6.5 or Norton 2007 it actually has to be
uninstalled. Make sure the Windows Firewall is turned on until you
reinstall Zone Alarm.

Boot into Safe Mode with Networking and try the change.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
Do not send mail.