Gary - I am posting on this news as you suggested - and have turned off the automatic update setting for Windows Update because WU was attempting to reinstall IE8. Please advise when able- Blithe xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Thank you, Gary. Yes - that's the uninstall proc I used. Thanks again for the answer I was looking for. Blithe I assume you used the uninstall procedure given here: [URL]http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700[/URL] Given your circumstance, don't reinstall until you read recommendations in the Windows Mail newsgroup to do so.