Thanks Bichur.  I did not explain myself well.  What you describe is what I see.  I see black text in the bar and white text for "Page" "Safety" and "Tools."  If I didn't know those three menus were there, I'd probably miss them.   The IE8 drop down menus appear normal for me too.  Sorry to be confusing on that.  I apparently have the most current build. Appreciate all your help through the years.  If SD refuses to relent on Impulse, and I understand their reluctance to do so, I'll be moving on.   Good luck to you.

Bichur - yup Impulse is unnecessary bloat from my perspective.  When I switch to 64 bit Win 7, I plan to do a fresh install.  At that point Stardock and I will part ways.  It happens.  No regrets.

I asked VStyler, the author of the skin called Naked about the white text.  His response was "IE text is not fully supported by WB yet."  Not sure what that means ... but I took his word for it.  He does good careful work.  I don't think he would release something with a problem that he could easily fix through SkinStudio. 

Neil - you might want to double check that.  I tried to download WB the other day to see if I have the most up-to-date WB build and the link told me WB was "Impulsedriven" and asked me to install Impulse.  Same for IconPackager and SkinStudio.  I'm one release behind on SkinStudio Pro and I think one behind on IconPackager.  So far I'm okay on WB.  What I've got works well on XP.  I have the standalone installers and S/N's saved.  As long as there's no activation problems, I'll be okay for awhile.