when minimized. I'm using Red Hat 9 Gnome. I know they are active (somewhere) I just dont know where they are or how to get them back. They are minimizing into the bottom right of the screen. Thanks in advance for your help.

Which programs are disappearing?

Netscape, AMSN Yahoo etc.

First of all, did you check to see if they are in fact, installed ? They don't just disappear.

Yes, they are all installed and configured properly (to the best of my knowledge). When I say "disapearing" I know they are not actually "disapearing" they are just minimized, or perhaps running in the background somewhere. To use the windows analogy (please don't hurt me!) right now when I run my cursor at the bottom of the screen, in XP there are 3 minimized windows.
Thanks for your help.

You can do the old fashion windows shortcut which is ALT+TAB to switch between programs. If you have a scroll mouse and the wheel also has a button action when you press down. Press it on the desktop and you will a list of programs as well as programs running on virtual desktops. If you have a mouse with three buttons the third button also does the same thing. I think if you press on the clock it will also give a list. GNOME also has a task bar option. You may have to right-click on one of the bars. Then go through all the menus from the pop-up.

Add a window container thing to your menu bar so that there is something to hold you minimized windows in, can't remember what it's exact name is, someone whose using gnome will be able to say exactly.

is gnome-panel running? or the taskbar?

You got rid of the 2nd toolbar in Gnome didn't you....

No problem, just right click in the toolbar that's left and add a Windows information panel. I'm not sure what it's called "officially" as I do not use Gnome anymore but its one of the choices to add.

I never liked the 2nd bar either so I deleted it too.

Yesssssssssss, I added a "Window List", that's exactly what I was looking for... thanks for all your suggestions, I will certainly explore them all.