The link below work ?
If not you might right click and copy and paste it into the browser url/address field.

Its a microsoft support page for xp/ie7 that covers some basic fix it steps for most problems in ie7 . Which are clear cookies, forms, history, cache, etc. Plus how to start it without plug-ins and reset settings to default.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926449/en-us

Thanks. I could copy & paste your link but at that site, I can't open any of their links because my computer closes down & goes back to the desktop when I do.

I might in you shoes try starting up in safe mode with networking & then go back to that page and seeing if clicking links works to get you through their IE self help pages.

Safe mode is accessed when immediately first starting your computer by holding down or tapping on the F8 key - which will bring your to a window with the option to start in safe mode,,,, you'll need with networking for a dsl or cable or satellite. Dial up modem I think would work in normal Safe mode, with no networking needed.

did this just recently start happening? did it work fine say a week ago? If you answer yes then probably the easiest thing for you to do is simply go back in time to a date that it was working fine for you. This is very easy and simple to do.
Click start>all programs>accessories>system tools> system restore. Open system restore and choose to go back to a previous date, it will open a calendar that has some dates and times showing when you have restore points saved, select one of those dates and restore points when your IE was working fine and tell it to restore the pc to that restore point, it will tell you to reboot do that and it will then set your pc back to the settings from that time.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084
there is some instructions you can copy and paste that into your browser.

The other option is download and use firefox browser.

It just started happening a couple of days ago however, I recently got DSL with a local company & had email issues with my old dial-up provider which I kept because I wanted to keep my old email & toolbar so I'm hesitant to go back in time if that will change any of the settings I did to correct those problems.

I don't want to spend more hours with India, if you know what I mean. Will that change those new settings?

Thanks for your help!

Oh, and if I download Firefox, will I lose my favorites?

firefox will ask you during the install if you would like to copy your IE favorites to firefox you just say yes and it will copy them over so you will have them on both. If you happen to miss that step you can import them at any time.

As to the other question if you move back in time to a date that was after your dsl change over no you would not loose any of that; if you used a date prior to those dsl set ups you might lose some. If your IE started acting up after the dsl change then you could just try to guesstimate a date when you think the IE was doing fine. However each go back in time can be easily reversed after the fact if it does not help or messes something else up. in that link it also tells you how to revert back too I believe.

Thanks so much for your help.