Internet Explorer partially working?

[scrapper]

Please know that I'm not very computer literate when posting a reply. Yesterday, my computer started acting very wacky. I have Windows ME and had been using IE 6.0. Now I can't run my Norton Antivirus-it is telling me that I must have IE 4.01 or higher??? Also, I can't open my computer, control panel, recycle bin... When I go into Outlook Express, the mail is there, but if you click on one, there is nothing in the body of the e-mail. When I send and receive, I get this message "Loading your settings failed-the configuration registry database is corrupt" I ran ad aware and spybot s&d, but all they found were cookies which I deleted. I can't access windows update or the download page through the microsoft website. Other than that, I can pretty much browse the web. Some sites I can't navigate though. Also, my kids use sbc yahoo browser and it isn't operating. Does this sound like a virus or is my IE just screwed up? Thanks for reading and any replies.

[mikeandike22]

It sounds like a registry problem to me. I would get hijack this ( http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html ) shut off all browser windows then scan click save log and post it here. I would also get something like registry mechanic. or if you want the easy way out then system restore to a day or two before this problem happened then run all those spyware programs.