Dear Jerry,
Have you tried editing the properties of the shortcut that you use to start Sidekick to get it to start in Compatibility mode with Windows 2000 or even 98.
Try using Task manager to shut down the Sidekick thread and then a few other threads before you launch it and see if that makes any difference. Windows will not let you shut down any REALLY important threads.
try that lot and see, do let us know if it works!
regards
Jim