Well, I popped the trial version of SPB Backup on, backed my system up, did a hard reset (Gulp!) and pulled stuff out of my backup...
...all was cool again, with the system running fine & dandy
SPB Backup is a good backup utility - very flexible - you can select anything down to individual file level if you want to.
So, the moral of the story is... don't mess too much with reg settings, graphics patches, task managers, tweakers etc. - this is Windows...
but then you all knew that already :wink:
Cheers Peeps!