UPDATE.....when firefox 8 "updated", it could not actually update....so it installed a 'full' version. After encountering the probs listed above......I uninstalled FF 8....!!??....it was still in the program list..??!!........and yet under firefox 'about', it clearly said firefox 9 !!!!! (i have no idea how that comes to be !)...anyway...uninstalled it, and then installed a freshly downloaded copy of FF 9 (i d'loaded it b4 i uninstalled). I then found that all the probs disappeared....with the exception of the constant checking for compatibility of addons. So, I entered "%APPDATA%\Mozilla\" in the 'run' box, clicked on my user name.......found the profile box.......found a folder called "prefs"...it is a (jscript folder)....and renamed it to "prefs.jsold".............FIXED !! The page i got this info from is :: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved Brian.