Good news guys... I have finally managed to fix the problem, without having to reinstall Windows 2000!!! After almost 3 days of agony, this is such a relief.
The fix is described here:
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBM/tip6100/rh6179.htm
The problem was caused by the uninstall program of Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum, which messed up many a systems files and registry entries!
Thank you for all your help.
This forum also helped:
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.c...8263&tmac=logc
Yippieeeee!!! :-)