You don't have to use IE, just make sure IE8 is installed and it'll use IE8's engine to display the start page. (Edit: said IE9 at first, but that doesn't support XP :P)
I've asked Tom to have a go and see if he can fix it for IE6 though, I'm sure you're not the only one still on IE6. It's a bit of a headache though, IE6 really is crap.