IE 6 and Office XP Extremely slow loading

[reminc]

I have a machine running Win98se, IE6.0,and Office XP Small Business. I don't know the history or what was loaded last, but it takes almost 45 seconds to load IE, Outlook Express or any of the Office apps. Other apps load and run fine such as Word Perfect, Act, etc. Once the apps load, they seem to run fine, but they take way too long to open. They did not take this long before.

Please help.