Petty Annoyance and/or Visual Basic 6.0

The petty annoyance is that no matter what I try, my taskbar will not stay locked. Everytime the system reboots it comes up in it's own preferred order (which is not my own preferred order). I've locked the taskbar, unchecked group similar icons, unlocked the taskbar and done the same and then locked again, etc... Played with everything I can think of. Any ideas anyone? Also, can anyone tell me whether or not Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition will function well and smoothly on XP Pro?
Thanks!