Corbomite:
Using the intro version did work for me. Happily flying carriers again...
And I'll try the introless but properly target-directoried shortcut. I normally make sure that their in there (usually copy the one from the install and just modify the .exe name) but may have forgotten the past couple of installs.

Usually, when the target directory is an issue, the game itself tends not to work. That's the only reason I haven't considered that as a problem. Nice to learn something new every day... Thanks for the responses gang...