blue screen blues--email freezes

Out of nowhere, when trying to download (I do it manually) my email from Outlook 2000, I get the box showing progress, but the gauge freezes midway. Then I can't close the progress box; it even stays on my desktop. Then if I try to close other ways, get message box saying:

"ThorConnWndClass unable to close", do I want to wait, etc.
(Later, looked this up on web, and no, I do not have Norton or NT and I don't know what ThorConnWndClass even is!)

Then after trying to shut down, got blue screens:
first screen: 0E: 0028: C0030BAB
then a second: An exception 0E has occured at 0028: C0030610 in VxD---. This was called from 0028: C003064F in VxD---.

So, I turned off Zone Alarm, Pop-up Stopper, and EZ Trust Antivirus (all on the comuter for ages) and ran Disk Clean-up, Scandisk, Defrag, plus dumped temp files. Then restarted, ran full virus scan which found nothing.

All seemed fine, could access Web and all programs, so I cautiously tried to get my mail again. Same thing, freeze city.

What is going on?

Vital info:
I have:
P4 1.5, 640, Win ME, IE 5.5

Running in background:
Explorer
Zone Alarm
Em_exe
Hpsplmwa
Rundll
Direct CD
Dpps2
Hidserv
Vettray
Motron
Systray
Osd
Hpmdlbwa
Vetmsg9x

Clue: I might have accidentally clicked on a "permission" a few days ago, but even after days of email sends & receives, no problem til tonight.
Also: I did create a "restore point" a few days ago, nothing much to lose, should I just try it?
Thanks for any wisdom & aid.

 

I'm too sleepy, no repies, if there's any nightowls out there with answers, I'll look again tomorrow. Thanks!