IE Browser stack fault and invalid page fault

Help please! I'm using AOL 7.0 and IE 5.5. I've been getting the following error messages a lot:

WAOL caused a stack fault in module <unknown> at 0000:00000003.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0157 EIP=00000003 EFLGS=00010212
EBX=00000005 SS=015f ESP=03d1fba0 EBP=00000230
ECX=80d9f9bf DS=015f ESI=00000001 FS=2957
EDX=00000000 ES=015f EDI=c23b36a0 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
00 65 04 70 00 16 00 a3 09 65 04 70 00 f4 d3 0d
Stack dump:
c23b36a0 00000230 00000001 713d0000 03d1fbf0 00000000 713e2dc1 713d0000 713d82e5 713d0000 00000001 00000000 00000001 713d13e4 713d6b6b 713d0000

WAOL caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 0157:bff88a37.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0157 EIP=bff88a37 EFLGS=00000246
EBX=00000000 SS=015f ESP=03d1fbbc EBP=03d1fbec
ECX=71425378 DS=015f ESI=71425378 FS=2957
EDX=c0022798 ES=015f EDI=00000001 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
a1 b8 19 fc bf 50 e8 9a b6 fe ff ff 76 04 e8 92
Stack dump:
71425378 7140fee2 71425378 00000001 7140f4e2 713d13f0 713d6b96 713d0000 00000000 00000000 713d0000 817134a0 03d1fdb8 bff7c00d 713d0000 00000000

This also occurs when using IE itself instead of AOL, except of course it says IE caused...blah blah. After closing the error boxes, I get a white page saying "page could not be displayed". This seems to occur exclusively when trying to log on to an account or going to the checkout page when buying something online. I'm also unable to download active x controls because, according to a box that pops up, my security settings do not allow it. I've checked my settings and they are set to allow active x. So obviously there's something else going on. I know it's some problem with the IE browser because I don't get these errors when using Opera. Unfortunately, Opera won't work when I try to download javascript. I guess it works with that Sun whatever VM and not the Microsoft VM. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bill