use of multiple browsers with win2k/winserver2K

Hi O learned ones...
(My apologies for a cross post, but I didn't know which list this fit...it
kind of fits both).

I had a horrible "accident" on my machine last week, that caused me to lose
my admin rights on my machine...which resulted in a horrible destruction of
my machine's capabilities.  My machine is running Win2K Pro, came that way
from Gateway.  Our company just made the move to win2k at the end of last
year & are also making the move to Winserver 2000 at the same time, but the
techs aren't familiar with it so no one knows how this happened.  I was told
by a tech at work that Netscape version 4 does not support Win2K, according
to Netscape, but I can't find where it says so on their site, another tech
told me Win2K can't have multiple browsers. I obviously need more than one
browser on my machine,  (I had NN4.08, 6.0, IE5.5 & Opera 5 for about 2
months  when this all happened).

Last Thursday I left my computer defragging at work, & when I came back to
it hours later (OK it was the next morning) somehow I had lost all
administrator privileges for my puter--I didn't know it, just couldn't
login. It was locked (the ctrl-alt-del-choose lock computer way).  There was
a bent (broken) network cable (it looked like someone had stepped on it), &
after it was replaced I was able to login (with my ID & password). Later on
in the day, not knowing I had lost my privileges, I did a Windows security
update (I had gotten a critical update notification).  After rebooting, I
couldn't login.  My administrative rights had disappeared, my machine had
disappeared from the network, & there were corrupted files, primarily
something like nmc.exe. They couldn't find my machine on the network before,
but replacing the cable seemed to work for me to login.  They said that when
I had done the security update without admin privileges that the machine was
trying to find the administrator, & without one it corrupted files.   The
techs decided my machine had to be what they call "re-imaged".  I lost all
administrative rights for my computer permanently as a result, & now have to
make a support call to install the simplest of programs.  I can't even look
at my computer's calendar (the one via the systray clock). What could have
caused this?  Is there a bug in win2k as to having multiple browsers, or the
defragging...how do you lose admin rights like that?

It'll be years before I am "trusted" again at work, even though I didn't do
anything out of the ordinary (a defrag & a Windows Update only), but I still
want to understand how this happened to me.

many thanks in advance,
Lady Wistfulee

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