Compatibility

We have 10 old IBM thinkpad 600(E) models, with the recent decision of upgrading office suites everyone was upgraded from any previous office version (97&up) to Office XP.
Now every time a user access Outlook and accesses a template or website Outlook crashes. But the crash happens at variable lengths. Outlook cn suddenly crash instantly with the opening of either a website or template or it decides to wait a full minute and crash itself
I initially thought this was because of the suites being upgraded and not a fresh install, but even the fresh reinstalls behaved in the same manner.
Help would be greatly appreciated!