<grin>
It's an old trick, and quite dated actually, and no, I can't take credit for
inventing it. I can't remember where I first saw it, but years back MS
(finally) realized that this trick resolved a number of problems with paint
and developed an article on problems with paint in Win98 and WinNT, which
established that "trick" as a method of resolving them. Fortunately, though
dated, the fix still applies in a number of situations. See:
Error Message: Mspaint Caused an Invalid Page Fault [Q185501]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=185501
Kelly also maintains a small reg file in her tips & tricks that removes that
key automatically without the user needing to run regedit at all, see line
191 on the left:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm