Seand,
Thanks for the tips. I will check them out this evening (when I am at my personal computer). It would appear that the ms updates may have contributed in some way to this problem, since, I, too, updated very recently. I did not install the patch (wrap?), since I was not prompted to. I will check this out this evening, just in case I need it.
As the present, I am not experiencing any problems. I did as Vjotech recommended and disabled my antivirus. I then went back and reactivated it (after customizing my scanning options by scanning only 'inbound and outbound emails' - I did not check the 'scan archived msgs' box, and that may help). I then downloaded the current email I had with no problem.
Like you...am keeping my fingers crossed! *G*
Thanks a ton for your help!
LeLe
PS: Methinks, there is more to this problem than meets the eye.