P.S. I attempted to suggest not using AOL but he says he needs AOL. So removing AOL is not an option.
Why does he *need* AOL? People *need* AOL like they need a bullet in the head. Sorry... I really don't like them.

My personal feelings aside: AOL is now free for everyone. You don't need to use their software to access their services. Just get a good ad blocker. I just switched someone over to DSL today. They wanted to keep AOL for their stocks portfolios and for email... so I just made AOL.com their homepage.

Is he using AOL over broadband? Or, is he dialing in? I was under the assumption that you are using AOL over broadband because you said its "slower than dial up" when using the AOL interface.

It's possible that he is using AOL over dialup and IE over broadband? Make sure that AOL is not dialing up but instead using the existing internet connection.