Int. AOL start-up

Greetings. I have an E-machine computer, and am using Windows XP. I use AOL 9.1, and at times, I can not get the AOL software to start. When I double-click the icon, the little hour-glass icon will come on for several seconds, and then it goes off. I have found that the only way that I can get on AOL is to restart my computer. I also removed the AOL software completely, and then down-loaded it again from the site, and that seemed to have corrected it for a while, but now it is doing it again! I have even gone into the computer programs, and tried to open it there, and still have the same thing. I am pretty much computer illiterate, so maybe this is something simple. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Its gotten to be somewhat of a crap-shoot, not knowing if the AOL software will start or not.

Thank you very much!

Bofus