Closing Taskbar & Startmenu Properties crashes

HI, I just did a clean install of XP-SP3 with lots of MS updates--all the Windows updates and some Security updates. I've never had this problem before--so I suspect it was one of the updates.

Right click on Taskbar, click Customize.
Click on a service (or Program like Logictech Mouse) and change it's Behavior, and if it's Showing and change it to Hide, it does Hide--so it is changing it.
Click OK, it closes that window, reverts to the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, with the HourGlass showing when the cursor is on that window. Once off the window everything is ok, programs run correctly. If I click anywhere on the window (with the hourglass showing) the Focus returns to the window and (Not Responding) appears in the title bar.

When I bring up Task Manager, nothing shows in the Applications. I took a screenshot of the Processes to compare it after I click the X (close) on the Properties window. I get the typical End Program- explorer.exe. I click End Now and take another screen shot.

There were 2 instances of Explorer.exe running and after the End Now button there is 1. All desktop icons are gone, and the Taskbar is gone. Windows Task Manager/Processes is still running and Notepad still works and was able to save this. The screenshots were saved in ScreenPrints temp folder. When I compared them--there was no difference in the Process list except 1 of the explorer.exe is gone. And, the icon I hid, is no longer hidden.

Some of the old archived threads suggest to remove the Google toolbar. I've never had a google toolbar, nor another one, but I did remove Google Chrome just in case. No change after a restart--it still crashes.

I ran CCleaner on the Registry.

Is there some system logging I can look at specifically for this problem?

Hopefully one of you gurus have an solution for me,

tia, Ron