i believe sites that use the secure channel i referred to (i.e. httpS) transmit using encrypted data ... different sites used to require different "levels" of encryption ...
in IE, it you click on "Help" and then on "About Internet Explorer", a window will popup that shows your current "cipher strength" ... this not be lower than 128-bit ... fyi, the more bits, the harder it is to decipher the encryption codes ... it's sort of like it's harder to guess a longer password than a shorter one ...
are you using a router to connect your computer to your modem? if so, many routers offer you the ability to encrypt information between the computer and the router ... i doubt that's the problem though if you could access the sites using Netscape ... it sounds like it's browswer related to me ...
the "regsvr32" utility is used to "register" a bunch of "dll's" (think of them as "sub-programs" or utilities that enhance a main program like IE) ... even if a ".dll" file is resident on your computer, the program that uses it may not be able to find it unless it is "registered" ... the program is able to find the location of the .dll utility in the registry and then is able to use it ...
no idea what happened with Outlook ... you might ensure that you don't have a virus or any spyware running ... Outlook is a popular target for such abuses ... i would strongly recommend installing the following anti-spyware program (it's free)... it's worked great for me ... if you do install it, make sure you turn on all the security options by going through every item on every menu ... the whole process should only take you about five minutes ... here's a download link:
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htmlwhat i like about spyWareBlaster is that it runs automatically ... you don't need to run it periodically ... the only thing you should do periodically, however, is check for updates ...
oh, and one last thing ... i once had the same problem where i couldn't run windows update ... no idea what caused the problem but it eventually just started working again ...
hope this helps or at least clarifies a few things ...