I tried uninstalling again. then I went through the registry and deleted all pspad references, and deleted the PSpad directory in program Files and all the PsPad files under application data for the various users and re-installed.
it seems to be OK now so it must have been some odd corruption in settings. It can be marked as fixed - but I have no idea what caused it. -- <http://forum.pspad.com/read.php?4,52380,52402> PSPad freeware editor http://www.pspad.com
