color palette stuck on one color

Hi, I'm using Excel2002 on WindowsXP Professional on a computer I have had and used sucessully for four years. Yesterday I ran into these symptoms:
- Font color icon on toolbar allows only red.
- Format cells pulldown menu Font...Color.. box is blank and disabled.
I use font colors all day long and with no known changes to anything, the colors just stopped working.
Following some other search suggestions:
- I have no book.xlt file on my computer
- the XLStart folder is empty
- Tools...Options..Color....reset does nothing.
- Restart excel/reboot computer does not bring back the color palette.

Any suggestions for how to get my colors back?
thanks
Jon

....just re-installed Excel and solved the problem. Not sure what went awry before.
Jon