IE-6 Favorites not working?

I tried a search for this, but it was almost impossible to tell from the topic subjects which if any of the results might be useful. So if it's already been covered, please feel free to steer me to the right place.

I use IE rarely (Firefox is my default), so can't be sure when this started, which makes using Sys Restore impractical. Sometime recently, my collection of Favorites started pointing to themselves (i.e., items in the Docs/Settings sub-folder) rather than to URL's.

I tried wiping them, then both "Save favorite as ..." as I browsed and importing from Firefox. In both cases I still get the same non-link behavior.

IE seems to work fine in all other respects, provided that I copy an addy into the address bar rather than trying to use Favorites. Most importantly, Win Updates (via the Tools menu) works properly.

Since this seems to affect only a small (but of course highly useful) part if IE, I'd hate to have to re-install it if I can help it, especially since I can't do an uninstall first (I'm on XP).

I'm guessing it's tied into a registry cleanup using a popular cleaner (which I won't name) which used to be so safe and conservative in its default settings that I got lulled into not backing up changes I made, typically deleting "obsolete" entries.

Any suggestions to fix this? Or is my best bet to simply re-install IE-6 SP1 (I do have the SP2 CD here somewhere, which will taking care of the worst of the updating afterwards)?

I'm running under Win XP (Home), SP2 plus all subsequent updates. "Hardware" part of the system is Celeron 2.2 ghz, 256 megs RAM, 40-gig drive with tons of free space (about 88 pct free, last I looked).

Thanks and best,
Mike