Thanks for your suggestion.  I was actually able to solve the problem by removing " -extoff" from the target location of the shortcut. It seems to work fine now.
I just upgraded to XP SP3 because SP2 will not be supported soon.  I was running Internet Explorer 8 before and now it will only run with "add-ons" disabled. How do I get it back to normal mode to run with add-ons? I have restarted my computer, but that doesn't change anything.  In Add/Remove Programs, Windows Internet Explorer 8 doesn't give me any "remove" option, so I can't even remove IE 8.  Please help....  
Internet Explorer 8 and XP SP3