having a big problem

[NightShade01]

G/f has a dell laptop 5150. 512 ram 2.8ghz 40 GB HD. Now the problem is she went to one college and installed there software no probelems. Transfered out of there to another and just had to log her IP at the new college. Now it worked fine for a while but then recently shes been getting an error message that says "current active x controls don't allow you to change this setting" i tried restarting changing all different combos of the internet propery controls and nothing. The weird part is there is nothing wrong with her internet! This error message is blocking everything else on her computer. She can't print scan you camera software connect to i tunes the music store and anything else of that nature. I'm not sure what else to try. We did un install re intall of all her software tried getting off the internet all together but that same problem happens can't run any kind of norton or mcafee progroms b/c it blocks them. I really just want her to wipe it clean and start anew but shes refusing. Anyone else with any other ideas b/c i'm totally totally lost! thanks in advance