Went into my Browsing History on IE8 and cleaned out the cookie jar, deleting years of unneeded cookies and temporary files. Then went into My Preferences, and using the password you sent me, entered my name and email, and saved. Instant cookie. To be sure I went back to my Browsing History and there was my new thechipboard cookie.

This should work for anyone else having trouble establishing a cookie. My name and email address loaded just fine in this reply to David's post.

Thanks David, you hit the problem right on the head. As usual.