BleepingComputer.com: Explorer Problems

hi i'v had this problem for about 6 months now.my explorer wont open any pages at all.when i click on the explorer icon the page is just blank.the top header shows the site i'm trying to connect to and same for the bottom,but there is nothing in the address bar untill i press the stop loading page button.i use firefox now and it works fine,but i still need my explorer for a few things.right before this happen i installed system mechanic 5 pro.i'm not sure if this did anything to my explorer.so far i'v tried so many things to try and fix my explorer but i'v had no luck at all.i'v done the following-spybot,adaware,ccleaner,avg7.0,iefix,kaspersky antivirus,regclen,kill2me,i found this program that uninstalls ie{ieradicator} i did this and i reinstaled ie,i used the repair ie when you goto uninstal ie from your computer,i emptied my temp files,cookies,cleared history,trend micro housecall said everything was o.k,i couldnt run pandasoft because i'm using firefox,regseeker,i reinstaled windows,i tried scanreg restore but there was no date prior to when this big mess happend.i have no clue at all at what i should try next.i'm running win98se.any help or ideas on this would be so greatly appreciated.thanks