Windows XP Headaches

Had to format my hard drive and start over after 6 or 7 years of having "XP" working some what good, asides the usual updates and fixes. Well the registry crapped out and I couldn't fix it, so Windows wouldn't load. Every thing's going some what good now but Outlook Express isn't working with "Hotmail." So been rooting around looking to see what the problem is. Wrote a letter to Microsoft and they sent me a note back telling me to load these three updates. One turned out to be a 64 bit program and couldn't run. The other one said I didn't have Outlook Express 6, so it didn't load. The last one ran but now my Internet Explorer doesn't work. What's real wild, every thing else works online. My Firefox, Netscape and Mozilla browsers all work. The auto update for Windows works. Norton can't update. I do get a error message when I sign on that something like the protocol isn't right. Trying to find Outlook Express on the MSN site, well it's not there. Even the older versions aren't there. The one update that the tech told me to load changed the address to Hotmail. So, to live the way it is or to keep trying to fix this problem. What ever is keeping IE 7 from working must be the same thing that's keeping Outlook Express from working.