Try setting the IE back to default settings,

click tools, Internet options, advanced, click restore defaults.

Then set the security and privacy to low, further, dump all cookies, temp files, etc...

Last thing, disable windows XP Firewall:

http://www.duxcw.com/faq/win/xp/firewall.htm

Reboot the machine, then go try it.

If the above doesn't work, try a system restore. that might work well in this situation.


The null as an object sounds like a Java script error. YOu could try installing Java again from the Sun Java site:
http://java.sun.com/downloads/

Hope that helps,