and it blows. wish I had waited for windows7.
Amen to that. As you can see, it really muddies up my skin.
I guess I'll just have to restore those parts to the default or similar and live with it.
Oh! Slightly off topic here... but would anyone happen to know why it refuses to keep my wallpaper when I shut off my laptop? It's fine while I'm on there but when I log off or shut down and come back to my desktop, it's switched to some sort of pale blue screen with a dotted pattern. As soon as I pop open the Desktop window it restores my desktop without any further input.
I can live with it. But I'd rather not. 
I guess I can say thanks for the help, in that "it's better than not knowing" sense. If I have any other questions, I'll post them here.