Locking up & IE won't work

I've been trying to help with a WinXP machine that locks
up when starting; has to be restarted 2 or 3 times to get there.
The machine is connected through a D-Link 655 router,
hardwired, with AT&T DSL service. A different computer
is connected wirelessly and has no problems. It's a new machine.

Besides the usual Windows features he has AOL installed which
is what he uses primarily. His Internet Explorer will not work.
When IE comes up it says page cannot be displayed and there's
a radio button "Diagnose Connection". When I click on the
Diagnose Connection button it comes back and says the
connection was successful, no problems.
http\\microsoft succeeded
https\\microsoft succeeded
ftp\\microsoft succeeded
When I "ping" Yahoo from the CMD window it says 4 packets
sent and 4 packets received. No problem. When I installed
Safari it worked fine, but the guy refuses to use Safari, he wants
his IE.

I've run scans with McAfee's Stinger and it removed whatever
it found. I've run 2 full scans with Ad-Aware; first scan found
9 objects which it deleted, second scan didn't find anything.
I installed SpyBot - Search & Destroy, but it won't run. There's
no problem installing it, but it refuses to start.

It seems there's something blocking his IE but I can't imagine
what it is. I've reset all IE settings back to the default settings.
And why does Safari and the AOL Browser work?

And why won't it boot up from the OFF mode without 2 or 3 tries?
It also locks up once in a while when being used.

Me and his computer need HELP.

Thank you.

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I'm diagonally parked
in a parallel world.
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D.H. Cesare