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Resi3js:  He already did 

Edit:  69Rat:  This is going to kind of be a pain in the lsass, but you can set Dr. Watson to run on startup.  This program is a little known debugger that may expose what object is not being found by lsass.  It won't do anything to your system, just log errors as they occur.  I'll look up the setup for boot and get back to you.......

Edit2  Go to Start>search>files or folders and enter drwtsn32.exe   searching the c: drive.  Once you find it, make a shortcut to it onto your desktop (Drag and drop it with your right mouse button to the desktop, then select "create a shortcut" from the pop up menu).  Now, go to "My Computer" through Start menu (or however you normally do it)  and double click on c: (Drive) .  Find the directory named Documents and settings, double click on it, then double on All Users.  Now, double on Start menu, then Programs, then Start Up.  Now, drag the shortcut you created earlier for Dr. Watson and drop it into the Startup folder.  Close all windows, then reboot.  When it comes back up, force it to exhibit the bad behavior with lsass.  Reboot, then wait the time for the error not to occur and let me know.  We'll need you to post the log file from Dr.Watson after you're done.

Cholla, I did look at all sites and tried Symantecs removal tool with no results. One of the sites talked about the 60 second doom and that's not my problem right now.

Cak46, I tried drwtsn.exe and it works fine except it comes up way before the error pops up Therefore it can't "catch" the error cause it's already run boo hoo   The error isn't coming up now until I click on a few icons. I think my memory banks are good enough now to explain how this all came about. When I tried to install Silent Hunter III it wouldn't cause it kept getting 'interrupted' So I mailed to support and they said to end all processes in task manager except sys tray and explorer. Well, one or two went away and then several came up and said 'cannot delete'. Well then came Lsass.exe and I clicked on that to end process and got the 60 second doom window and my system shut down After that everything was fine (for awhile) At that point I started 'studying online' everything I could find out about lsass. I ran my clean-up utilities and finally went back to experiment with lsass and clicked on it to 'end process' and guess what? It now came up with 'cannot delete this,,,,,,,,,,' No 60 sec doom :!:So I now thought everything was fine. But that same weekend( I think it was Saturday) all of a sudden the lsass error started popping up on my screen It's weird cause when you get the 60 sec doom it just keeps coming back till you fix it. It only happened to me once. The next day (Sun) I installed XP Pro but the error stayed   As far as I can tell I have a clean system and it is a legitimate system error. The lsass file path is is just as it supposed to be. I'm sending info to MS today and see what they say. (again) Cheers, the saga continues some more,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Good questions Cak46 I did get Silent Hunter installed on Sunday after I installed XP Pro. Unfortunately, the error problem started on Sat., when I still had XP Home  BUT I will uninstall it just because............. On Watson, it came up first and then maybe 3 minutes later the error popped up but nothing came up on Watson's screen. This time it came up without me clicking on anything!!!!!!!! Now yesterday, it seemed like it was popping up everytime I tried to enable my firewall which was weird cause my firewall is conf'd to start on boot but it has not been starting on boot Hummmmmmmm, uninstall my firewall?????? I wonder. Later in the eve, it didn't matter what icon I clicked on, it just seemed to come up whenever it felt like it No word from MS, they are probably pulling their hair out by now,,,,,getting ready to "suggest"  that "we make a clean install"  I will take out Silent Hunter right now

update: Silent Hunter is gone with no results. Watson doesn't come up in my task tray. It comes up on my screen and there's no way to config it. But again it didn't show anything when the error popped up. Still, lots of trouble getting my firewall to get started so I will remove it now,,,,,,,,,,,,,,stay tuned

update X 2: there's no way to minimize the Watson window that I can find,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

resi3js. I think you nailed it right on the head. So far, MS has not mailed me for two days now It's a puzzle alright, I mean, everything works just fine, all I do is wait a few and click OK and it's gone without any  problems. And to be present in two OS's , Home and Pro, tells me that the "faulty" file was there and not removed after I installed Pro. This was an upgrade only so all my files and settings were saved. Sooooooooooooo, I have several formatted cd's, UDF style, that I can use as floppy discs with 539Mb's each and I can start the old transfering process. The sad thing is, that if I do this, we will never really learn how to fix it in a more basic way. I went to some of your link suggestions and many others and this is a big problem but a "simple" solution doesn't seem to exist. There are forums all  over the place talking about lsass.exe. If nothing comes up by the weekend, I'll go ahead and do the clean install.

cak46 just read your note, I will look at the logs right now,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,stay tuned

Looks like we may be getting somewhere.  If you want, do a print screen of the information you want to post  (print Scrn key on the keyboard, then paste it into mspaint, then save it and do a post and attach the file.
Edit: goin' to do some research.... back soon.....
Edit:  Looks like a driver issue or a permissions issue, maybe.  Did you update or install Anything that day it started happening, including hardware drivers?
          Another thing to check:  Go to start>settings>Control Panel>Users and Passwords and check to make sure your Login id is in the administrators group
Here is some info:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/result.aspx?EvtSrc=Application+Popup&EvtID=26&ProdName=Windows+Operating+System&LCID=1033&ProdVer=5.2
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/result.aspx?EvtSrc=Application+Popup&EvtID=26&ProdName=Windows+Operating+System&LCID=1033&ProdVer=5.0

Ah yes, print screen, thank you. The only thing I was trying to install was Silent Hunter about 6 times up to that point including on Sat. Will check your links right now Thanks, I'm getting a little excited. It's so cool to get something "almost mystical" fixed, not to mention perplexing

edit; ya I'm the comptuer administrator,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

editX 2; The trouble with their "fix" is that they are saying I need to reinstall the drivers to fix the error but they aren't telling anybody what the drivers are for