strange
It isn't only the gradient options, it's ALL the gradients of the interface
These gradients are created with the standard gdi32 library from Windows, and I think the code is OK (nobody else seems to have the problem). It's perhaps a memory problem? How many RAM have you got...? You were perhaps running too many programs at the same time...?
You can also try restarting Windows, starting MSN and see if the problem is still there. If it is, ok there is a bug