R 1.7.0 (Windows) Crashes After using "Install Package from Cran option" within

I should have added to my previous email that the work around mentioned 
at 2.17(a) does not correct the problem.....

What is 2.17(a)??

Also as mentioned earlier I can get Rterm to 'work' though I get the 
error messages mentioned earlier.
For instance demo(image) produces the expected results, etc.
My understanding is that now the 'methods' pacakge is loaded by default. 

Yes, it should be.

When I search() in Rterm methods is not present in the path and 
furthermore I get messages to the effect of 'methods' not loaded:

When I first extecuted demo() I get
"warning message:
package methods in options '(defaultpackages)' not found."

That's a sign that there is something wrong with your installation.
If you look in the R home directory, do you see a subdirectory called
library/methods?

After installing the program with no hitch  I used the the 'Install 
Packages from Cran' optinon in the drop down menu from Rgui. (This may 
be bad form, if so let me know): I selected all paackages to install and 
everything was fine until the 'dse' package was downloading. 

It's probably not a good idea to install all of the packages that are
available 
 - it uses a lot of bandwidth to CRAN (unless you've chosen a mirror
closer to you)
 - it uses a lot of your disk space
 - it gives you lots of hits whenever you do a search for help -
you'll find way more than is useful.

But it should work (except that it will fail on dse, unless you're
using the patched version of 1.7.0, along with a not-yet-available
repackaging of dse).  However, the fact that methods is missing from
your installation indicates you've got serious problems.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<DATABASE>
<EXE NAME="SYSTEM INFO" FILTER="GRABMI_FILTER_SYSTEM">
   <MATCHING_FILE NAME="advapi32.dll" SIZE="558080" 

Most of this information isn't any use.  If you have DrWatson or a
similar crash analyzer, there may be a few lines of useful information
(e.g. the location of the instruction pointer at the time of the
crash), but mostly it's not all that helpful.  Easily executed
instructions for reproducing the crash are the most useful information
you can give.

Duncan Murdoch