Next questions (fuller, fuller information)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

OK, I've taken a look at what's there in the administrator's data area 
and at least part of the mystery solved.

a) As in the user data area, there is a directory with a single (but 
empty) file
    c:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\.gconfd\saved_state

b) BUT -- there is also a directory  (which is NOT in c:\Documents and 
Settings\Mike & Penny)
    c:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\.gconf\

and in this directory, working down nested levels
    ..........\.gconf\apps\

in which
 ...........\apps\gnucash\   and ....\apps\%gconf.xml   (an empty file)

in which
 ......\gnucash\dialogs\ and ....\gnucash\%gconf.xml  (again an empty one)

in which
 .......\dialogs\tip_of_the_day\  and ...\dialogs\%gconf.xml (again empty)

in which (finally getting to something
    ......\tip_of_the_day\%gconf.xml  WHICH IS NOT EMPTY

OK, I've taken a look with a text editor . I could insert the file 
contents here, but don't see much point in doing that. I didn't get a 
whole lot farther with GnuCash open  after installing (which was done 
logged in as administrator). so not surprised that this was the only 
%gconf.xml file with contents. There are a couple things I could try 
here to see if I could get it "unbroken" in terms of behavior. For 
example, I imagine that if I copied that directory chain over to my 
"user" data area, everything might begin working. If not, I could 
probably get the "tip of the day" to cease by manually editing the boolean.

Not really the point. Something seems to be wrong that this directory 
chain was never created in my user data area.. It was set up during the 
install process instead of first open?  (in other words, when GnuCash 
opens, check to see if this initialization has been done and if not, do 
it in THIS data area --- under a multiuser operating system, each user 
has a distinct data area so doing just once would be inadequate (in 
other words, yes if I had installed from the same login that I was using 
the app under it then might work FOR ME (but every other user on the 
system would have the problem I am encountering).

I can wait though. The annoyance of not even being able to disable "tip 
of the day" to say nothing of changing other settings and preferences 
doesn't greatly interfere with the parallel testing I am doing with 
regard to using the application for accounting. Might as well see if 
other folks trying to use this new release are having problems or not. 
Of course if their computer use is truly "single user" (only one log in 
existing, and so of course an administrator) they might not be having 
any problems. And folks running older versions of Windows like Win98 
(assuming this release was OK for that) wouldn't see the problem either 
as not "multiuser" (sequential multiuser -- even XP isn't concurrent 
multiuser like a 'nix is).

Michael