Velocity Reviews - Internet Explorer does not connect to the internet

OK, This problem has been going on for quite a while. In short, when I open Internet Explorer, the browser opens, it tries to load the homepage (or any page for that matter) and never does. There is nothing in the status bar, and the windows logo on the top right keeps animating as though it's trying to load the page. It will keep doing this until i press Stop, where it tells me "Action Canceled." By the way, all other browsers like Firefox and Opera work without a problem. I need IE because some programs like Winamp use the IE connection, and thus do not work if IE does not work.

I have done everything I could, and nothing helped. I have deleted temporary files, I have reset the web settings. I have checked for spyware, adware, or viruses. I have tried installing internet explorer 7 which did not fix anything, so I went back to 6. I have even tried reinstalling 6 and bypassing the version check (or else it wouldnt even install since it finds a "newer version" of Internet Explorer already installed). I have tried registering the 6 or so dll files as described in one of the microsoft pages. Also, when I double click on the ie6setup.exe file, I first get the error message "A previous installation has pending work requiring a reboot. You need to restart your computer to complete that installation before running Internet
Explorer Setup. Setup will now close." So apparently, IE did not finish installing at one point or another, and now is stuck in this state. Yes, I have edited the registry about a billion times, and nothing. I've called Microsoft support, and they have led me to nowhere. I do not remember how this happened, but I literally tried EVERYTHING. Yes, I have also done sfc /scannow and that did not find a thing. I used Registry Mechanic to try to repair the registry, that did not change anything at all. I have downloaded WinSockFix, which did nothing. I have downloaded the IEFix and LSPFix, which did nothing either. At one point, I thought that one of the windows updates might have killed my IE. I uninstalled all the updated that have been installed recently, and by recently I mean about 3-4 months. As you can tell, I am very frustrated. :banghead:

So PLEASE, if anybody has something ELSE besides the fixes above (because that's about all I could find online) I would GREATLY appreciate it.

Konstantin