UI disappears

[brxbrx]

I didn't find this on the bug threads, and I doubt I'd be the first to discover it; hence I am assuming it is a rare or heavily contingent problem.
My commander interface (where I can select and order commanders from time to time- don't know what forum regulars call it) would disappear sometimes. Usually this happened when I would exit the army screen in an ongoing game. I was able to assuage this by just restarting the game, sometimes repeatedly.
I could definitely deal with that, though.
Recently, however, I got a virus, so I had to reformat and restore and et cetera (I did manage to salvage my saved gamse, fortunately). Whence I reinstalled Dominions (first game I installed!) and patched and so on, I proceeded to try and play it.
All miseries conjunct, my once intermittent problem of my commander interface disappearing seems to have evolved: if I so much as select a different province, everything vanishes. Armies, forts, province data, magic sites; my entire user interface has ceased to exist. All I can see is some well-drawn map.
No hotkeys or anything works, I have to close the program with the Task Manager.
My theories so far are: video card betraying me, DRM gone horribly wrong, some crucial file gone AWOL, or some remnant of that damned virus lives to thwart me again.
Thank you so much for any assistance.

Just wanted to add, don't enjoy contacting support (though they were very helpful before)- thus I'd like to see if the community would help me first.