I can no longer launch MS Office documents or URLs from either:

(a) Shortcuts, attached files, or plain-text URLs in Outlook or other
Office documents
(b) Select+Enter or Double-click on Office files within Windows
Explorer.

From (a) it hangs for 2-3 minutes (or more) then eventually opens (if I
don't lose patience and kill it first)
From (b) it hangs for 2-3 minutes (or more) then gives the error:
"there was a problem sending the command to the program"

Copy+pasting the URL directly to IE works fine; opening documents from
File-Open in any Office document works fine.

Microsoft.com/support has no answers. I have tried the following based
on similar problems in newsgroup postings, with no help:

- I disabled and exited firewall (ZoneAlarm) and antivirus (CA eTrust).
I also confirmed that 127.0.0.1 and 0.0.0.0 were already "trusted
networks" in ZoneAlarm.
- I used "Detect and Repair" from Word and Outlook
- I ran a complete virus scan with new signatures
- I ran a complete MS AntiSpyware scan, cleaned two minor offenders,
and rebooted
- Removed COM add-in from Outlook (Google search) and rebooted

This began on three days ago. It seemed to start soon after I changed
the IE security for "Active Scripting" in the Internet Zone to
"Prompt". However, I immediately changed it back to "Enable" and the
problem remains, so it could be coincidental.

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP2, Office 2003, IE 6.0