A recent MS Windows XP update changed my default settings from Firefox to IE and they refused to "stick" despite several resets using the Firefox menu. Using XP's Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs solved the problem. Here is a link that might be useful: Fix Firefox as the default browser

if you did the update to IE8 it does a sneaky little trick when it installs and has caused many to have a problem like that where it wants to keep Ie as default. Try this Make sure IE is closed In firefox Click Tools, Options, then click the Advanced icon in the Options toolbar. Click the General tab if it's not already selected, then make sure Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup is enabled. Click Check Now, then confirm that you want to make Firefox your default browser. Click OK. go into your IE settings and uncheck the box to check to see if IE is default browser that should stop it from continuing to ask you. you should go ahead and do this also Start button --> Set Program Access and Defaults "Custom" option selected. Click on the downward arrows to the right of Custom. Under "Choose a default Web browser" select Mozilla Firefox. Click on OK. you may want to check this link and the further instructions at the bottom on the link for if that did not work. How to make Firefox the default browser Setting Firefox as the default browser does not work let us know if you still have a problem after doing those steps.

My warranty was still good so I called MS and they walked me through a very long procedure. She said the "addins" were corrupted and she walked me through removing them. Thanks anyway.

Hi, Jane Oh, I didn't know this error was happening when you start up the computer. I thought it was only when you tried to have Gmail's webmail open as the default email client that you got the message. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any of Gmail's offline functions, so I can't help with that. And I'm not sure how the error message you're getting at computer start-up relates to your difficulty in having Gmail's webmail as the default email client. (I imagine that it would be possible for you to disable whatever offline Gmail feature you're using (is it the notifier or something else ?), or at least to set it so it doesn't start at computer start-up to see if that helps Gmail to open as your default client when you're online. AFAIK, the notifier is necessary for Gmail's webmail to be the default client. But perhaps the offline Gmail interferes with that ? I don't know. I'll keep looking into it.) You could try clearing your browser's cache and specifically Gmail's cookies and restart your browser to see if that clears things up when your computer restarts. Re: Outlook: since you were having issues with Outlook taking control as the default email client, my directions above were to Outlook itself. In Outlook's Tools > Options > Other there is a place to de-select Outlook as the default mail handler to help clear the way for Gmail to handle that.