windows xp home edition

Hi ,

i have a situatio where a notebook windows xp home edition became erratic.. eg cannot connect to internet (no error messages), outlook express has error message ‘was a problem swithching folders, possibly because the folder was busy. Please wait a moment and try again” and it will then not let me access my messages.’.
cannot get into IE Internet options, cannot run some control panels applets…

Please advise

thanks

Henry de Silva