Internet Explorer browser

This is probably a very vague question but I am going to ask it, before I have take my PC to the shop.
My situation that I can not excess the internet with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8.
I have XP and SP3 .I was running explorer 7 and upgraded to explorer 8.
After a while, I decided I liked explorer 7 better.I deleted explorer 8 and then thought I was using 7 but my pc tells me I am using 8.
In the add and remove program, I don,t show explorer 8 there but 3 updates to explorer 8.
When I turn the p.c on, and then click explorer,it looks like it is trying to load because the icons on the desktop flash.
I can run Firefox just fine, but can not get on the interent with explorer.Any suggestions.
I have asked a couple of questions in the past and you folks have been so helpful.

 

Thank you for getting back so quickly.
First i have been so frustrated with this ,I can not remember how I tried to do it.
But this is what happens now.
I tried to download explorer 7 and get the message..newer version is running.
I just tried to download explorer 8 again and I got the message:Internet Explorer installation did not complete. Please restart your computer so that setup can undo any changes that was made.
I re-started it and I got a message from explorer 8 with an installation icon that said run. I clicked on the run icon and it installed other components of explorer 8, I guess.. After, it came back and my desk top was fine,But when I clicked on the Explorer icon, the rest of the icons on the desk top flashed 3 times, like explorer was trying to connect to the internet.
I tried to delete one of the updates in the add and remove programs, but got a message that I might lose some files that explorer 8 created.

 

Does this help? If you were asked to remove a program from your computer would you look for it in Control Panel or My Computer?