Well done to sort it
And the Fix" you found may be of use to others.
One thing. You said:
Windows Explorer works fine browsing that way (they are the same program but a few things work different on them..just IE is the issue)
Not quite.
You'll find "explorer.exe" in C: \Windows and "iexplore.exe" in C: \Program Files\Internet Explorer.
The versions and sizes respectively on my up-to-date XP Pro machines are:
6.0.2800.1221 and 973kb, and
6.0.2800.1106 and 89kb.
BTW, a similar problem hit me recently with a Blue Screen crash whenever I opened the excellent shareware GPS Utility Application. The solution was to shutdown ZoneAlarm Pro while I wanted to use the GPSU. This showed up in
Event Viewer as a Truevector malfunction. Always a good idea to keep an eye on the Event Viewer to help diagnosis. You'll find it in:
Start>Settings>Control Panel>Administrative Tools