[h-e-w] make-frame function read in .emacs in w32 ver 23.3 but not 24.2

[E. Caudex]

I wasn't able to get any help with this at gnu.emacs.help so I thought
I'd try here.

Backtrace shows an error at this position in my .emacs when used with
24.2 but not with 23.3:

...

(make-frame '((name . "courier")
           (top . 1) (left . 1) (width . 123) (height . 18)
           (visibility . icon) ; nil or icon
     ))

(select-frame-by-name "courier") ;;^ point at buff. pos. 26164

(set-frame-font "-outline-Courier
New-normal-r-normal-normal-*-*-96-96-c-*-iso10646-1")

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "There is no frame named `courier'")
  signal(error ("There is no frame named `courier'"))
  error("There is no frame named `%s'" "courier")
  select-frame-by-name("courier")

.....  Reading at buffer position 26164 (^ under paren)
....

Does any of you know what might be causing this? Up to this point it
looks like the .emacs has been read without a problem except for the
name of initial-frame, overwritten by something in Emacs ver. 24.2 .

(setq initial-frame-alist '((name . "arial") (top . 370) (left . 1)
(width . 205) (height . 18)))

;; this frame is created near beginning of .emacs and named "arial" but
by the time Emacs is completely loaded the frame title ends up being
whatever the buffername is.
Right before the call to make-frame, custom-set-faces makes the default
font arial unicode.

Can the position of initial-frame-alist in the .emacs affect its
interpretation?


Thanks,

Ed