Hmmm....??

Did you actually make a clean install, in other words wipe the disk and then install Windows XP? Or did you upgrade your existing Windows 98SE to Windows XP?

You could try removing IE (Add/Remove Windows Components) and then reinstalling.

But if you actually upgraded a W98SE installation to WXP, I would personally start from scratch, wipe the disk clean etc..... (and to avoid affecting your data in the future, you might want to try partitioning your disk, placing OS + programs on one separate partition (C:\), and all your data on another partition (D:\)).