I just wanted to give back (a tiny bit) to the community that's helped me multiple times.

Somehow, I changed an archaic setting in my user account on xp pro.

All of the sudden Fire Fox 2, IE 7, and Office 2003 Publisher wouldn't show any background images. Publisher would Print Layout View okay but not while editing. Also all of my outlook folders look like a windows 95 icons...

Everything on My wife's user account looked just fine.
And I started screaming and pulling my hair out.

Anyway I did some creative google'n and came up with an answer

Control Panel->
Accessibility Options->
Display TAB->
Use High Contrast - toggle it off!

Thanks for the tip!