Talidan, thank you!!!
That solved my problems... I am finally able to connect via SSL! msvcr71.dll from
http://www.dll-download.net/msvcr71.html was indeed corrupt!
I got the file from
http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?msvcr71 and everything works like a dream now.
Thank you so much for taking the time to register and share your findings... hopefully this spares the next person some aggravation!
