thank you Mark and Rancor!!
it did work! the missing step, for anyone facing this in the future, was to install the 4.0.0.29 upgrade (which was already installed.) this seemed to flag the application loader to reload the whole os.
now i can have my berry on vacation.
I would also advise people to stay away from =PocketDict English-French until this problem has been corrected. I have contacted handango and the makers of this program.