My internet explorer takes 5 minutes to load initially, then after that, the window that has been loaded is fine and WORKS normally. Any other windows of internet explorer (i have 7.0) take 5 mins to load as well. Mozilla firefox took a normal amount of time to load so i'm guessing it's just the program (ie7). This is all new to me because this has never happened before now -- except that now i had recently learned about defragging and cleaning up your hard drive and put that to good use. I used windows defrag and vopt8, as well as duplicate file DETECTOR, a registry cleaner recommended by pcworld magazine, and ccleaner. I also used windows' own cleanup utility and scanned my drive for errors. Upon the cleanup utility's conclusion, it told me it deleted some files that could make windows not work stabilly or something LIKE that -- i have a terrible memory, sorry! >__<
Could all this have lead to a slow ie load -- i mean, this is the only thing i've done differently recently and this is the first time this incident with ie7 has occurred.
Thanks in advance for posts.

edit: also, i tried this and it happened too; the tabs work just as slowly when you try to load a new one.

Another edit: I booted this morning and firefox worked just as slowly in initial loading...i have had the same problem takes a few MIN to load opera and firefox. DONT really know why if you find a fix let me know.