Hi,
I've got a more or less complete list of things for you to do:
Try this:
Close Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.
Go to Control Panel/Internet Options, and clear your temporary Internet files.
Now click on Settings/show files, and delete your cookies.
Or, if you're running IE 6.0, delete your cookies on the Privacy tab.
Now go to Start/run, and type Msconfig. On the Startup tab, look to see if you can find one or more of the following entries:
SWPortal, SWCaller, Sp.dll, and/or MSKernel32 (Win32.hta).
If you find one or more of these things, uncheck them.
Now click OK, close Msconfig, and reboot.
Now open Internet Explorer, and go to your favorite Start Page.
Go to Internet Options, General tab, and click 'Use current'.
If after rebooting there's still no change, lets move to phase 2:
Go to Start/run, and type Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel
Is the subkey called 'Control Panel' indeed there, rightclick it, and choose delete from the context menu.
Close Regedit
Go to the 'Programs' tab, and click 'reset Web Settings'.
Go to the 'Security' tab, and set all ActiveX options that are now set to 'allow', to 'prompt'.
Also uncheck 'Enable install on demand' on the 'advanced' tab.
Now open Internet Explorer, and go to your favorite Start Page.
Go to Internet Options, General tab, and click 'Use current'.
Good luck,