At a guess I would say that you have those options disabled/protected by Spybot S&D.
By golly, you were right on, with the Spybot S & D being the cause.
On the other hand, I wouldn't generally have given Spybot permi-
ssion to prevent me from changing my home page. I have no idea
how or when it could have happened.
Of course, I ~did~ have to change from default mode to advanced
mode. There it was, right under the IE tweaks section. For some
reason there it was, plain as day, a box checked stating to disallow
the current user to change the home page.
Thanks......bunches.....