Windows Xp Internet Explorer 7 Update (Acting Very Funny - IE7 IS NOT WORKING!)

Okay well this week I had a notification on my systray about a new windows update. So I clicked on it and checked what it was. It happened to be the new "Internet Explorer 7" from microsoft. I didn't pay any mind to this because I use Mozilla Firefox. But I love keeping my windows up to date. So anyways everyday this week I would see that same notification pop up from windows telling me that the new "Internet Explorer 7" is available for me to download free.

I decided I would have a go at it and while the notification icon was on my systray I clicked on it and choose to download it, than the notification icon disappeared. I proceeded to do my usual pc work and than later on shut off my pc. The new IE should have downloaded as I was on my pc for hours. Anyways I shut off my pc and expected windows to tell me if I wanted to install the new IE while shutting down. Usually windows xp says that with updates, but this time that was not the case. I shut my pc down and it went off as normal, no "click here to shut off or restart and install updates", nothing.

I turned my pc back on and got the same notification from windows saying that the IE7 update was available... & I'm like what the heck I thought I already choose to download this? So I went to the start menu of my pc and went to all programs, than to the windows update. I went on the microsoft site and ran the scanner to see what updates I needed, and found out that I still needed to download the new IE7 so I chose to download it this time from the microsoft site. Well it was downloading but the system tray still had that update notification icon (the yellow one), and I clicked on that while I was downloading IE7 from the microsoft website. The icon told me that the new IE7 was ready to download. So I paid it no mind and let the microsoft site download it for me instead of the icon.

The new IE7 install popped up at the end and I proceeded with the on screen instructions to set it up. It was set up fine and told me to restart my pc. I restarted my pc thinking I would get to see the new IE7 and nope
I clicked on my Internet explorer and my home page loaded. But when I tried to go to any site by typing in the address bar but a message said something like "unable to run active activation", or something like that and wouldn't let me go to any site. This message looked like a pop up error message you normally get from windows every now and than. Except this message didn't say error...

So I went to the start menu, went to all programs, than to the windows update tab and clicked on it. It wouldn't go there! The same message popped up! So I got cheesed and went on my firefox to see if the internet was working and if sites were working and they were just fine there. So I said you know what I'm going to get help from this forum before I go on.

I uninstalled my IE7 from the control panel and restarted my pc. Now I have my old IE6 again... I'va gone to the microsoft update site to check and scan for new updates for my pc and it lists IE7 again. But this time the site only shows a "INSTALL" button, and has a message under the description of IE7 that says something like "Already Downloaded - - - - 0kb". I assume this means that all I have to do is click install to have it again.

But why won't it work and what do I need to do to get it to work? & why is it doing this? I think maybe it's because I ignored the systray notification from windows xp for a week and kept canceling it ???




PLEASE HELP


THANK YOU