[herg67]

ok, Here is what I am now left with after your advice to take out the surplus paths.

C:\Program Files\Native Instruments;
C:\Program Files\VstPlugins

I have taken all the vst plugins (except Reaper's own) out of the the Reaper (64) folder and placed them all in C:Program:VstPlugins

Now I get Reaper crashing when I am saving a project, loading a new one from within Reaper or closing Reaper. It is much much worse and pretty useless at the moment :-(

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: reaper_host32.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 545d2456
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.18247
Fault Module Timestamp: 521ea8e7
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 000337a2
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: b608
Additional Information 2: b608c90f71e099db7a52b6142cafab54
Additional Information 3: 5ac1
Additional Information 4: 5ac1701818b5c99adcb06f510f017797