"Network Connections" missing!

This is odd. I had to reinstall WinXPPro yesterday (onto a reformatted C partition). Everything seemed to go fine, but now I'm noticing some strange things.

Such as, in Control Panel, my Network Connections group is empty. But I in fact have NIC built into my motherboard, which shows up fine in the Device Manager, and it's working -- I can see the other 2 PCs on my home LAN, and I can use the internet (all PCs are connected to a router connected to the DSL modem).

If I view My Network Places and click on "Set up a home or small office network," I get a message that says "Cannot Complete the Network Setup Wizard / Your user account does not have adequate permissions to set up a home or office network." I am the only user on this PC, and I am "Computer administrator. "

Yet another weirdness: I like to specify which icons I see in the notification area of the taskbar (e.g. I always want to see the anti-virus icon) -- but when I am looking at Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, the Taskbar tab, and click on Customize, the screen that pops up is empty! If I un-check "Hide inactive icons," it pauses for a while after I click on OK, no hidden icons appear, and when I go back into Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, the "Hide hidden icons" box is checked again.

Have I entered the twilight zone?!? Help?!?

(My version of XP has all of the critical updates installed.)
========================
ABIT NF7-S motherboard; BIOS v.1.3; nVidia XP drivers v.2.03, SI SATA drivers v.1.0.0.22 / Athlon XP 2600+ CPU; ThermalRight SLK-800 all-copper heatsink w/Delta 80×38 FFB0812EHE fan; Arctic Silver III / 2 × 512MB Mushkin PC3200 DDR memory / 2 × 80GB IBM Deskstar HDs in RAID-1 via Serillel adapters / Pioneer 106S 16X slot-loading DVD-ROM / Visiontek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4200 video card (drivers v.40.72WHQL) o/c’d@315/560 / TEAC floppy/ LSI Logic SCSI card (for scanner) / rounded IDE & floppy cables / Enermax EG365P-VE 350W power supply / Cooler Master ATC210AX1 case (rear exhaust fan replaced with Delta fan like above, additional in-blowing fan installed in front) / BUSlink USB 2.0 external 60GB HD / Iomega external 100MB Zip drive / HP C5100A PhotoSmart scanner / Dell 2026T (20â€) monitor / Microsoft Natural keyboard / Logitech TrackMan Marble FX; Logitech TrackMan Wheel USB for gaming; Logitech Mouseware v.9.73 / WinXP Pro; LiveCon! v.1.2; Norton AntiVirus 2003; Motherboard Monitor v.5.2.2.8 & ShutDown NOW! v.4.5.1.3276

 

Gotta say I'm impressed/stymied -- this forum has always come up with results in the past, I'm surprized at the deafening silence to this query.

As is oh-so-typical of long-time M$-Windoze users, I figure I need to wipe the C drive and reinstall -- NOT to fix these little glitches, but to fix the daily XP-blue-screen-of-death that pops up and reboots completely randomly........ Probably because I insist on using a ... monitor ... and M$ HATES monitors ... or maybe it's my mouse ... oh, god, how M$ HATES meeses -- it hates them to pieces!!

 

Got me befuddled. I've seen a 2K system do similar and went nuts for several months before tracking down the cause. But it wouldn't apply to XP at all and certainly not to a fresh install.

But if you are gonna start over, read the "why use ntfs on xp" article I just linked to a thread in the discussions section. INformation in there that would certainly make me pick it over FATnn for any 2K/XP system.