I am seeing several problems after I close Internet
Explorer. One is that there is a long delay of 90 seconds
or more before the next application will start up. I close
IE, and the window goes away immediately. But then I hit
the Start button (for example) and there is a 90 second
delay before the menu comes up. This problem happens only
sometimes, depending on what I did in IE.

The second problem is that after I close IE there is no
longer a prompt for whether or not to disconnect from the
Internet (I have dial-up access.)This problem happens
consistently.

The third problem is that when I try to shut the system
down I get a message that "Task is Not Responding", with a
choice of whether to wait or end the task.

I suspect that these problems are all related. I'd
appreciate any suggestions.