can't "open with" PS - can only open from within PS

Hello everyone, I hope someone can help me with this weird one!

I recently reloaded Win2K (clean install, reformat etc) and reloaded most of my apps (the only new app that wasn't in the old install is ebay turbo lister).

For some reason, now if I right-click a pic and choose "open with" photoshop, PS will open but the image is not there.

I have done some searching on the net and can find no info on this problem. I have tried looking in the menus to see if the pic was there but off the screen or something, but the app is definitely empty. I have to go to file>open and then browse for the pic separately.

All my other image apps will "open with" just fine, and if I set the file assoc to PS, a doubleclick on the icon opens it in ps just fine (although r-click & "open with ps" still won't work).

Interestingly, when the file assoc is set to PS, opening a folder full of images results in a large wait while the PS icon slowly replaces the generic windows file icon, file-by-file through the list. I don't know if this is significant?!

I have uninstalled and manually deleted all traces of every adobe product, rebooted, reinstalled PS but the problem persists. The only thing different about the system is no service packs yet (W2KSP4 seems to have caused lots of probs so I'm holding off).

Is this something that a SP is likely to fix? Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Neil