OK just now..
Normal (and quick) login box.
Shows 'me' logged in.
Have options to Mark Read.
Will surf about and see.
(Could still have been my setup: what's the lore with Windoze? "it hasn't really decided which way to glitch next - till you've rebooted 3X" ?? That isn't ALL BS either, though this is first 98 I've been close enough to, to thrash..)
Also I just had to send some NETSCAPE 4.5 spyware to new Spy-Jail folder (in case its absence nuked the install):
Talkback.exe - whose .ini umm queries system info, and elsewhere - sanctimoniously intoning, "but we'll tell you just what info we'd *like* for our survey". And this Corp POS only appeared some several launches after... install.
(And I'm listening to an interview with George Carlin now, at City Arts & Lectures - reminding me about the cultural brain-injuries that lie behind such obfuscations / lies).
So - maybe whatever it was? Isn't. All fixed.. (And ZA. WW are ON)
A.