Two questions: Vegas Effect and Marker URLs

I used to be able to make the "lights" in the Vegas effect sharp-edged circles, but changing the values for length, hardness, width, and even opacity have no effect on the blurriness and streaks that are emanating from the "lights" even when they're not animated. I don't have any other effect on the layer.
?
Also, I see in the AE online help and in many tutorials that "you can" use a marker to send viewers to a URL when they reach a particular point in a .mov movie. When I play an AE movie that includes an URL marker (either link or comp) exported as an .mov in QT on my Windows machine, and I have a browser open, I don't see anything happen.
?
I'm using both AE5 and AE 6 on both Mac and PC

Thanks