DCOM ERROR WHEN OPENING INTERNET BROWSER

I'm currently using IE7 as my internet browser. About a week ago I noticed that my internet connection had gotten almost unusable. If it did connect after several minutes the connection was useless. First thought I had picked up malware or spyware but have run both the Malware and Spybot products with no change. This morning I looked in the System Event Viewer under the Administrative Tools section of Control Panel and found tons of error logs. All of them seem to be the same "The server(…..)did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." The Event ID is always 10010. I went to the Microsoft site and find a posting referencing the error but couldn't follow the resolution. I did also try Firefox but get the same error. I have another PC that's working just fine so it's something with the PC. Acer Aspire 3000 running Windows XP SP3. Can anyone help me decode the error and a fix. Thanks in advance!

Hi momopapa, welcome to WhatTheTech.

The first thing I would try is a System Restore to a date before this problem started occurring. That "should" resolve the problem. See here:
How to use System Restore to Undo Changes if Problems Occur

If it doesn't or if System Restore doesn't work for you, I did find this. It's old but I wonder if it applies:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909444

Under Resolution, see this section:

For a computer that is running Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 and is not running as a domain controller, follow these steps:

Even though you are running XP, I wonder if this is what is happening. Check the permissions on the %windir%/registration folder as the article suggests, see what they are set for.

Here is another MS KB Article: DCOM Clients cannot create Objects - event ID 10010

I was able to fix this problem using directions I found in Microsoft Article 81344, even though the DCOM error is not specifically mentioned. It seems that when I executed Method 5 to reset the Internet Explorer settings my problem went away.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813444/en-us

Glad to hear it's fixed. How did you come across that particular MS article?

I think I was just very lucky. The title of the article 'You cannot log in to or connect to secured Web sites in Internet Explorer' came up an a search of the Microsoft Support web site and caught my eye. Thanks again for your suggestions!