My guess is, considering I've done all the same steps with nearly the exact products and programs, that you need to upgrade from ME. Try XP, or even downgrade to '98, although I'm not sure that's possible. I just tried the entire process again, using Vic 2 and the same Koza hair, and had zero problems, on a 1.3GHz Duron with 512 DDR (nearly identical, saving the Pentium problem...) We'll get to the bottom of this! (grins at you)