Internet Explorer

Not sure I understand what it is you're asking here ... if you want a particular page to come up as your Homepage when you open a new browser in IE, navigate to the page you wish to set, then open Tools from your browser's toolbar, select Internet Options, then select "Use Current" in the Homepage panel, then click Apply then click OK. That oughtta do it. To see if it did, close all browser windows, then open a fresh browser window and see where you wind up. To determine you version of IE, again from Tools, select Help, then select About Internet Explorer. The version in use, as well as a list of ServicePacks and Updates, will display in a popup box.

Let me specify
I want a program that will automatically refresh my browser page at given intervals

That can be done easily with javascript and a frameset.

But what do you want to use this for?

If you want your own browser window to refresh automatically, there's PC Magazine's BrowserFresh, available for download if you've subscribed to PCMagazine's download service. I dunno if it works under XP, or with IE6; you'd have to figure that out yourself.

For eBay addicts and other auction watchers, there's Auction Sentry
You might wanna check out an alternative browser, such as Opera or Mozilla's FireFox ; both of them can be configured to auto-refresh, and I think Netscape can be similarly configured.

If you want to force your own webpage to auto-refresh for viewrs of that page, there are a number of HTML and Java tools that will force client pull, rendering a new page on a preset schedule or whenever updated on the server. Just what is it you're trying to accomplish?.