AAAGGGHHH 10.3.9 - No love for Entourage or Mail

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Intermediate level Mac User - all the software but not big on troubleshooting.
g4 15' Powerbook running standard Graphic software and some little extras.
East Coast Australia based.

HELP!!

There's various levels to my problem here, but I suspect they're related in some way. Problem started right after install of Mac OSX 10.3.9 update>>>
Only a problem for 1 of 2 users on the machine.

Procedure
1. downloaded and installed OSX10.3.9 Update
2 . Download and install Firefox


Problems
1.Launch MS Entourage X (from Office X install - it's been working for a year without a problem) - which seems to start up, but then hangs/friezes with the beach-ball timer rotating indefinitely if it's over the Entourage menu's (but is regular arrow when over other parts of the screen). There's no mail window, no keyboard shortcuts work, menu's dont work. Can switch to finder by clicking on desktop. Can't use Dock icon to bring Entourage to front. Can bring to front with command-tab. Office notifications are working. So I Force quit Entourage.

2.In Finder, I go to user>documents>Microsoft User Data>, and JUST select the folder "Office X Identities". Finder gets the beach ball, hangs indefinitely. I Force relaunch / restart / shut down etc etc

3. Same path as above, select folder "Office". Finder hangs etc etc. Force relaunch.

4. Try using 'Mail' app. Open mail app, go to pref's so i can put account details in - Mail app hangs indefinitely. Force quit.

Have compressed the database daemon, dumped prefs, run all the utilities, reinstalled Entourage from installer, created new Microsoft user data folders, reinstalled OS update, almost killed my girlfriend.

Computer has 2 users.
1. Entourage works perfectly on other users login.
2. I can navigate to those infected directories and open them from other user, and no hang occurs.
It's got to be something within my user surely??

There's never been a problem before with Entourage before and 2 days of forum reads and eliminating just about everything has led me to the verge of maddness and good Australian beer. Anyone know what this could be?? What else I could eliminate??

Any help is really appreciated - thanks folks
Tim...

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getting this tread started - anyone gonna reply. Pls??