Thx so much Jim!!! That did the job. I was using the Main Identity and
creating a new one got it back in order.

Jim Pickering wrote:
You may have some setting in the registry that is corrupt for the
identity in use. Try creating a new identity, switch to it and create
an email account and test that. If it works there, then you can import
your mail messages from the old identity and delete the problem one.
This corruption is more likely to happen when you are using the default
"Main Identity" created when Outlook Express was first opened.