Jeff Forman writes:

>My neighbor asked me to check out her >computer because she could no longer access >the internet because internet explorer is not >loading. All she gets is an error sound. She >has a cable hookup and she is getting all of her >email. I installed Firefox on her machine and >imported all IE info.
>It is working flawlessly. She is running XP >Home on a very slow machine. Should I >download a copy of IE from the Microsoft site >and reinstall it OR is there another fix that I >can do? Thank you.

I recently installed Windows Update KB891711.  I immediately began having IE malfunction in the way you describe (able to retrieve email, but unable to open IE).  Dr.Watson informed me that WU KB891711 had changed something or other (I don't remember what).
As it seemed the easiest thing to do, I uninstalled WU KB891711.  IE now functions as before.

So it is possible that the cause was a Windows Update, which changed values (or something).  You should ask your friend if she had done an Update before the problem started;  if you can identify the most recent updates, perhaps you can discover if this is the problem and fix it without re-installing IE.

Martha Conolley

             PCSOFT maintains many useful files for download
                     visit our download web page at:
                  http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml