I said I was going to provide a link to how my problems were solved.  My expensive MS service request provided two fixes, neither of which worked.  I did the regedit, to no avail. 

I googled the problem, and found a link http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=186700934&subSection=Development to an article the led me in the right direction to solving the problem.  I had previously tried that, downloaded what Microsoft said, and it did not solve the problem.  This time it did.

Now I can also use Outlook Express, MS Frontpage 2000, paint, MS Office 2000 and MS Office 2003 (I upgraded, hoping it would solve the problem, it didn't), without problems happening with the "Save as" drop down box and the open folders dialogue.

MS Support link in the article linked above scanned my computer, determined the proper patch, I installed it, and it solved the problems.

I bet many of the other problems mentioned on this site recently could be solved by this patch.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions, I was pulling my hair for new things to try.