i have been able to set up the ajax toolkit modal popup just fine (except in IE...), but sometimes when a page with the control loads, while loading, the modal popup is shown, and then, upon completion of page loading, it is properly hidden.

this gets really annoying, and takes away from the overall user experience.  is there any way to stop this from happening?

 I doubt you did not hide the modal popup content panel at the page load

<div id="somename" style="Dispaly:none" >

blob

</div>

by clicking the target control id if you are showing the above div.. then u need to make it hidden on the page load.

tried this, and it keeps the modal popup from showing on load, but then, the content that is in the modal popup is not pre-loaded, and the user must wait for it to load.

scratch that, at the moment my site is slow, so it was still trying to load stuff, even though it was "done".  seems to be working fine.

thanks for the help.

 I have never see this kind of scenario what u r looking .. 

 what ever u r telling its not solvable by any one by visualizing u r words...

and no one wants to create the environment for you (at least me).

So better post code and ask questions. Saves every ones time.