all right, on my work win2k machine, i have now removed OE from the PATH.
first, without rebooting, this didnt fix smart buttons. that was strange since NO reboot was required to break smart buttons, but i wasnt that worried yet.
i have now just rebooted! OE is NOT in my system path, but smart buttons still dont work!
further experiments are clearly called for, but something very strange indeed is going on here!