Vista Internet explorer problem

Just wondering does anybody have any advice about a problem I have.

For some reason Internet explorer will not work on my laptop. I am running Vista, but when I select the explorer icon, the wedpage loads, and then immediately shuts down with the error message,

“Internet explorer has stopped working
windows is searching for a solution to the problem”

Followed by,

“A problem caused the program to stop working, window will close the program and notify you if a solution is available”.

I can load explorer from the accessories menu with add-ons disabled, but after enabling/disabling various add-ons I cannout figure out what is making any difference.

The wireless capabilty also seems to be switching on/off, though it seems characteristic of a hub problem, not a laptop problem?
Does anybody have any suggestions?
(edit to add: as you may guess, Firefox works ok, except that it wont allow me to download anything)

An infinite number of things can cause generic program freezing and lock-ups like you describe. I will say though that if IE and Firefox are causing issues for you, it’s more likely something wrong with the computer than with IE or Firefox. As a third option, there’s always Google Chrome.