I discovered that even though I uncheck the "Enable Background Processing", ArcCatalog seems to occasionally forget that setting as well as the Editor and Debugger settings when I close and re-open ArcCatalog.
A reinstall really should be your last resort, as it is major surgery on your desktop. These user settings are stored and managed on a per-user basis in the %APPDATA% folder and your HCKU registry keys, so a reinstall may not even have any effect!In ArcMap, and ArcCatalog geoprocessing options are written on exit - if you change them in ArcMap, this will change them for ArcCatalog as well (next startup). The last app to save "wins" -- this is another argument for not running multiple apps at once unless you have to.The geoprocessing environment is handled differently: in ArcMap, these settings are saved in the map document, in ArcCatalog, they are saved when you close ArcCatalog. The ArcCatalog GP environment is used as the default when ArcMap creates a new map document.I recommend closing all ArcGIS apps, (and making sure there are no "headless" versions running in task manager - the best fix for that is to log out and log in again, or maybe even restart). Then, try [thread=90079]resetting your application profile.[/thread]I recommend doing this whenever you apply a service pack or update. And sometimes just every few months - just to keep things cleaned up!
