Hi Steele,
I’m running under XP-Home with all critical updates and all but a few of the “recommended” ones, and I’ve never (yet, knock wood) had a problem accessing the collection of provider setup menus from the ball-icon in the tool tray, even after selecting the “stop… and exit” option.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether I’ve simply paused one or more of the providers, or actually stopped them. The context-menu I get when right-clicking the icon has right at the top (the only item in bold) “On-access protection control” which lets me start, stop, change customization details, etc.
Best,
Mike