Xnews "opens" but does not run

I have been using Xnews for quite a while without any problems beyond the
standard Xnews issues. I was using version 5.0 on a 98 SE system. The system
is old but it worked for this just fine. Today, all of a sudden, the Xnews
window disappeared. It was visible on the task bar but it cannot be
restored. A right click provides close and restore/minimize as options but
does not provide an option to maximize. Choosing "restore" from the
minimized state does not produce a maximized window, just a button on the
task bar with the appearance you would expect from a program running in the
active window. However there is no active window running Xnews. Rebooting
has not restored normal function.

What is more, starting Xnews causes the screen to flash as it rewrites
itself and only the taskbar button appears. No Xnews window.

This started shortly after I ran AdAware on my system. It took out a couple
of likely tracking cookies but nothing which looked to me like an issue. I
also uninstalled Norton Personal Firewall shortly before the problem started
and I have no idea whether that has anything to do with it. That takes out a
lot of stuff but Xnews is reasonably self-contained, I thought.

Any thoughts? Being condemned to use Outlook Express for more than a few
minutes is a depressing thought.

- Shankar


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