As it happens, I do have some windows updates to install, I'm just too damned lazy to install them, seeing as they're only for OE, so I'll give that a go when I get to work in the morning.

2k does have windows update. I believe the old v5 web client is installed with sp3, as well as wupdmgr.exe et al.

Supposing installing the pending windows updates doesn't solve the issue, are there any other things I could be on the look out for?

Many Thanks for the pointer so far!

Regards,
Alex.