How do I enhance my browser?  It seems it used to work fine but now it
does not support frames and there are many other problems with not
being able to enter web sites, etc.  Even though I have worked with
Internet Options and even gone to the management console, the truth is
I hardly know what to do.  From what I have read, I lack "plug and
play", there is mention of ActiveX, Java, DirectX when I have sought
out computing articles, etc., but I do not have time for a graduate
course in such things; I just want it to work well again.  Can you
advise me on what is needed?  Or where to start?

Hi Margie-ga,

First off, I have to warn you that your question is not one which will
have a single answer.  Diagnosing what exactly your problem is will
almost certainly require several exchanges between us.  I am going to
provide a first round of suggestions.  If one works, that is
excellent.  If not, please provide as much information as you can
about what *exactly* you did, and how it did not work.  I will then
give you a second round of things to try based on that new
information.

My personal preference for fixing IE6 is to ignore it completely and
install Mozilla, a free and standards-compliant browser with a much
better security record than Internet Explorer.  It can even be made to
look like IE if that is your preference.  You can find it at
http://www.mozilla.org/releases/stable.html.

As for getting IE to work, you should first try reinstalling (perhaps
uninstalling first) IE6.

Also try visiting Windows Update and grabbing all the security
patches, service packs, and other whatsits related to Internet
Explorer.

Try going to a few sites with increasing complexity / brokenness. 
Start out with ://www.google.com and then http://www.apple.com and
then http://www.slashdot.org and lastly http://www.microsoft.com.  If
these all look good, give me some URLs that are not working for.  If
these don't look good, please try to describe what is not right about
them.

Best of luck!

-Haversian

one of the IE 6 problem is Java. Microsoft does not support Java
anymore. fortunately you can download Java add-on for IE 6 for free
from www.sun.com