A few problems I've noticed in this beta

So I've been running the D3 Beta for a while now, and I had a few questions related to problems with beta running on my computer.

(1) When I start the beta now, the first thing that pops up is the "Update" dialog box that shows the Digital Pre-sale info, link to forums, game guide, news and community stuff. I then have to click the play button. Is this SOP right now with this beta, as before it would just normally skip this if there was no beta update?

(2) When I click play (only once, mind you), for some reason, D3 attempts to launch two separate instances of DiabloIII.exe on my computer. Is this something anyone else is experiencing, and if so, how do I fix it so it only launches one instance of the game?

(3) While in the game, I get to a click (or other event instance) where my computer completely freezes. It lasts for about 10 seconds and then comes back. However, when it comes back, my graphics are all screwed up and I can't see nearly the detail. I get "light squares" and "moving negative (dark) squares" and such, and I almost have to Ctrl+Alt+Del the game to close it. Other times, if I exit back to the home screen, I can reenter my game and everything is back to normal (for a time). This graphics issue was, from what I remember, not present in the previous beta release.

My system specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 3.0 GHz, 4.0 GB DDR-2 PC-6400 SDRAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 896 MB Video Card, Windows XP SP3 fully updated, DirectX 9.0c.

Any and all responses would be welcome. Thanks.