Bizzare IE6 Slowdowns

[Gemini]

I've run out of ideas on this one, so hopefully someone
here can help me out.

So long as IE6 is the first program I run that tries to
access my ADSL internet connection, and so long as I do
everything in just one IE window, everything runs fine.

The moment I try to create a second IE6 window, whether I
still have one open or not, or if I run any other program
that wants internet access before opening IE, my access to
the internet through IE slows down to an absolute crawl
until I reboot the system.

I have Netscape 4.8 installed for mail purposes but I can
still browse the internet full-speed through it even after
this problem sets in after bootup.

I have virus scanned and spyware scanned, both with
recently downloaded updates, have cleared and set-up
browser caches, made sure I had all proxy detection
settings disabled, and have even tried disabling my
firewall. I have tried reinstalling IE6, uninstalling IE6
back down to IE4, even tried using IE4, but even IE4
suffered this exact same problem both before updating and
after downgrading.

I am running Windows98SE, have installed all critical
updates, I have PPPoE ADSL software running on a 1728 KBPS
connection, I do not have OE installed, and I have two
monitors & graphics cards connected to my system, not one,
in case that makes any difference.

About the only strange thing I've noticed by using Dr.
Watson is that DDHELP.EXE gets loaded until I reboot after
I load IE for some reason or another.

Any ideas?

--- Gemini

 

[H Leboeuf]

Try this removal too. CWS is a nasty parasite.
AdAware and Spybot have difficulties in keeping up with the updates.

CoolWebSearch - CWS http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/cws/
More: Where a removal program is available.
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html
Direct Download: If the site is not available.
http://216.180.252.218/~spywareinfo.com/downloads/tools/cwshredder.zip

 

[Gemini]

After downloading and running the CWShredder tool I have
discovered that no trace of CWS was present on my system
to begin with.

So, this clearly is not the problem plaguing Internet
Explorer on my system.

 

[Gemini]

File this problem under the STOOPID box.

Apparently, it was my firewall configuration all along. I
needed to permit a "localhost" UDP connection in both
directions for IE, and doing so solved all of my bizzare
speed issues.

Though I still find it odd that my first IE window after
bootup would work fine despite this. Could someone please
explain to me why IE apparently MUST send packets from
localhost to localhost across UDP to function
consistently? It would be appreciated.