Glen:

Yes, I backed up the VXD registry.

It appears that Windows installed the driver for the mouse I have:
msmouse.drv.

We had a program 7 years ago that required a dongle. We no longer have
the dongle. Or the program.

So, on a whim, I went into msconfig to see if I could find anything.
Sure enough, under system.ini there was a selection called [386Enh].
Under that there was a checked box next to "device=SSIACT.386". I
unchecked that. I've now booted a bunch of times, all successfully.
This seems to have made the difference.

An interesting side note: for quite a while (more than a year), the
computer usually didn't shut down properly - it would get most of the
way and just hang. We'd have to turn off the power and then wait
through the disc check when we turned it back on. Since making the
change you suggested to remove the Logitech stuff, that problem seems
to have gone away. Every time I've shut it down for the last day, it
shut down properly. And I've shut it down a lot because of all the
changes. (This problem applied to restarts as well as regular shut
downs.)

Anyway, what are the consequences of getting rid of the SSIACT.386 be?
I suppose I can wait and see if something doesn't run.

Thank you,

Steve