Also, I have can pull up mozilla firefox. I have updates windows. Downloaded the cache clear which is what they recommend. I have macafee, ad-aware, ccleaner, and spywareblaster. Could these be part of the problem? Thanks!
Answers:
Yes. Ad Aware is Adware itself, only to trick with names. And Spywareblaster is also a type of Spyware itself, it is a Trojan Horse. you should download SS Secure Shell and Spybot however I do not know how just search for it on www.yahoo.com or www.google.com
Also, macafee i think is a very destructive Trojan Horse and will probably overwrite all your documenmts. I suggest you immediatly download Norton Ghost, too, if possible.
I always say the biggest mistake people make is using more software which leads to more holes. Configuration is the best defense. I would suggest just resetting the computer to factory defaults after backing up all data (files, bookmarks, etc...) Or switch to Linux where you will be adware, malware, and virus free! I use Debian linux.
Not a clue uninstall and reinstall and then update before use.
IE is not that great anyway you should give more details
A couple of things.
Does this only happen after you have already opened IE then you cant re-open it again?
Does this happen right after a complete reboot?
I would bet that for some reason the application is not terminating properly and that the process is still running in the background. When it happens again, check your task manager to see if "iexplore.exe" is running. If it is, then manually terminate the process and try to start IE again.
As to the cause, there are a bunch of reason it could be. new patch, bad driver, other process hanging a parent process...who knows.
Do you have the latest and greatest patches for IE installed?
Well probably you are right, all these programs in one poor computer. I recommand that you put one (All in one) software, and stop making my computer as a bus stop. Also I recommand that you stop all these applications and try if the IE can run. and then decide what program is stopping it.
If you are running them all at the same time (maybe) but just a thort stop every thing and turn power off and put your fingers on the heat sink (not the Motherboard) if you are running a lot of apps your CPU is working hard and getting hot, if the heat sink is hot up grade the fan and make sure you have some room around the Computer Case, heat can do some odd things.
Buggy install, It's as simple as that, these programs should not ideally be a problem. reinstall IE should not be a problem!
there are 2 Dell downloads for upgrading to xp.mine crashed too. talk to a Dell tec.