Thank you Bruce and PA Bear for your suggestions. I am using XP SP3 with IE8
recently upgraded and also recently upgraded from Norton System Works 2008 t0
2009. The problem also existed a day or two before I upgraded to IE8 when I
was still using IE7.

Links still do not work in OE6 but work fine within IE8 and Microsoft Word.
IE8 is set as the default browser from Control Panel. OE6 is set to allow
links and images.

Yesterday when I hovered my mouse over a link in OE6 it showed the words
blocked and the rest of the link but today I do not get this warning but the
links are still blocked. Actually when I click a link IE8 does open with a
blank page wiith no error message and it just hangs and I have to close with
Control/Alt/Del which takes forever and the computer becomes unstable. I can
still successfully copy and paste the link to IE8 and they work fine that way.

I have checked:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929867
And all the setings seem to be correct.

I can't understand Frank Saunders last line:
If all the above is correct, uncheck: Use DDE.

So is DDA supposed to be checked or unchecked?

Yesterday I contacted Norton Support to see if any Norton settings were
causing the problem and during the support session while the Norton
Technician had remote access to my computer all the links in OE6 worked fine.
All the Norton settings were set to default. However later that day the links
failed again which is very puzzling. I dont know if the remote access by
Norton stopped another process that was causing the issue? The Norton
settings seem to be the same

I did a quick maleware scan yesterday using Malware Bytes and nothing showed
up. I will also do a full scan using the microsoft scanner suggested above to
be sure. I did have a problem with Malware in the past which interfered with
OE6 and IE6 so I am not underestimating the danger. I always keep a back up
cloned hard drive for emergencies but I hope I will not have to use it.

At the moment I suspect a third part process is causing the problem, perhaps
Norton or something else.

Thanks for your help and any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Kind Regards
Chris