i could try to help you on that but it seems that you are having more than one registry settings problems there, in order to work on another system registry i'd need to have a very clear understanding and communications as well, which's not easy for me in this case.. hope you understand.
anyway, let's try this one first and see if it will help things in the taskbar works a bit better.
go to "kellys-korner-xp.com" and look for a .reg file called "restoretaskbar.reg",
D/L the file, backup your registry, and import the .reg file and see..
and as for the "My Documents always opens up", on the same site go to this page
www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_mydocs.htm
then see the info under the section "To Stop Windows Explorer from opening My Documents" and "My Documents Folder Opens Upon Boot" and see if these helps.
for the rest of problems will be later after you post back...
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