Virtual Machine

I don’t believe that I have the Microsoft Virtual Machine installed on my computer. I am running Windows XP Pro. I do have Sun Java 1.5 update 6. Sometimes my browser window opens fine and other times there are numerous areas which either have the small red x or an i and it says internet explorer was unable to link to the web page you requested in the box. I have tried all of the troubleshooting steps at both microsoft and sun to no avail.

Any suggestions or direction?