Ahh code...if only I knew. I have a g4 MDD 1.25 GHZ with 1.75 gig RAM. I have reinstalled Panther 10.3.5 [and FCP 4.1, both from stand alone disks] and yet every time I close out of FCP 4.1, it crashes, [UNEXPECTEDLY QUIT] and corrupts the preference files. Trashing the preference files doesn't...