Excel Freezes at Start-Up (RegEdit to the rescue?)

OS: Win98 2nd Ed, w/update. Excel 2000

At approximately the same time I opened Excel and closed
IE with dial-up still connected - can't recall which
order. Excel froze at start up and remains Not
Operational. Adobe Acrobe was also running at the same
time. I uninstalled and reinstalled Excel, same problem.
I uninstalled and reinstalled Office, same problem. I
can't seem to completely clean out Excel for a clean
install. I think I need to edit the Registry. Where?
What? If such a thing, How do I reset Excel to zero (0)
in RegEdit? Below are two sample of "Details" when
problem occurs:

EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in
module MSO9.DLL at 017f:3096a3d0.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=017f EIP=3096a3d0 EFLGS=00010212
EBX=00000001 SS=0187 ESP=0062f964 EBP=0062f9a0
ECX=00000004 DS=0187 ESI=00000000 FS=342f
EDX=3096a43b ES=0187 EDI=00000800 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
85 b8 90 02 00 00 8d 45 dc 56 50 75 c3 ff 15 34
Stack dump:
00000000 00000000 00000001 00000000 01260274 01210058
000002c4 00000002 00000000 00000000 0003dba1 00000190
0000012c 00000000 00000004 0062f9b4


EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in
module MSO9.DLL at 017f:3096a3d0.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=017f EIP=3096a3d0 EFLGS=00010212
EBX=00000001 SS=0187 ESP=0062f964 EBP=0062f9a0
ECX=00000004 DS=0187 ESI=00000000 FS=3edf
EDX=3096a43b ES=0187 EDI=00000800 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
85 b8 90 02 00 00 8d 45 dc 56 50 75 c3 ff 15 34
Stack dump:
00000000 00000000 00000001 00000000 01230274 011e0058
000002b8 00000002 00000000 00000000 0003c545 00000190
0000012c 00000000 00000002 0062f9b4