thanks Philipp for wanting to help me out on this problem. however, i seem to have figured it out already. it might be something you guys at VSO would want to incorporate into the next release of CopytoDVD.
the one thing i forgot to mention in my previous post was that the version of DVDFab i have is called "DVDFab Platinum". consequently the default installation folder for the program is "C:\Program Files\DVDFab Platinum". after some searching, i noticed that there is no such entry in the WinXP registry location for VSO supported 3rd party software pointers. Here is the location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VSO\Starter\3rdParty\ExtractDVDVideo\
in this location there is a pointer to both "DVDFab" and "DVDFabExpress" but not to "DVDFab Platinum". so i added a registry key for the default installation folder of DVDFab Platinum and a registry string that pointed to the executable: dvdfabexpress.exe. now the icon and display name for DVDFab shows up in the VSO Starter app list. does all that make sence??
it did occur to me that any 3rd party software could be added to the VSO Starter app list from this registry location. i hope this info can benefit people with similar problems and hopefully the issue can be resolved in the next update of the software...CopytoDVD is a great program.
thanks again.