When I try to close OE or close a message (from a known contact w/o
attachments), only part of the screen disappears and hangs. Moreover, when I
click on any of the taskbar buttons, there is no response.

This problem started a couple of days ago. The only program I have
downloaded is Windows Live Messenger (used to use MSN Messenger 7.5 and got
tired of the nagging 'update' message).

Is anyone else using OE6 with WindowsXP (Home/SP2) having this problem?

How do I fix this?

Thank you for your time and assistance in this matter.

Nite