Usually Windows will send the link to your default browser. Can you check this article to see whether it helps? Make Firefox your default browser

Also, you could try installing IE8 from Microsoft's site: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=43

I have tried to download IE, Google Chrome, and for some reason, my computer will not install any of them.Every time I click on a link, my computer tries to use IE. have Mozila, but when I try to use the shortcuts that I save with Mozila, my computer tries to use IE, and my computer says a problem has been encountered with IE and it needs to close.

You might need to do some kind of repair of Windows. Try a Windows support site for guidance. For example:

http://windowssecrets.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/38-Windows-XP-Forum

Ok, thanks for the help. That was helpful. I change my default browser to Mozila. It is working now, except it is very slow. I takes just over a minute to open an icon I click on. If I could only make it faster.

Regarding the time to launch a link, is Firefox already open or is it starting from scratch? Usually it's faster to keep a Firefox window open. If that doesn't help, you may have a problem with the components of Windows that handle URLs.

I click on the desktpp icon. But it takes over a minute to open. Really slow

A possible cause is security software (firewall,anti-virus) that blocks or restricts Firefox or the plugin-container process without informing you, possibly after detecting changes (update) to the Firefox program.

Remove all rules for Firefox and the plugin-container from the permissions list in the firewall and let your firewall ask again for permission to get full unrestricted access to internet for Firefox and the plugin-container process and the updater process.

See:

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Server+not+found
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Firewalls