thanks, I had tried that already without success. I finally got it after
four hours of experimenting and finding new kinds of online help. There is
one site (forgot which) that actually explained the rationale behind vista -
if I had found it two months ago I could have saved many wasted hours, tears,
rage and self doubt. Desperately seeking something familiar, I had changed
the start menu to back to classic, and it was either this or my 25-year habit
of opening my files by going straight to them rather than via start which was
denying me the details pane.
So now I can tag, but have other problrms so will start new thread
jo