Internet Explorer has stopped working

Hi, I'm having some problems with explorer, I've tried to sort it out myself with info I've gleaned through google but to no avail.

I was using my computer tonight when all of a sudden windows reported there was a problem with explorer and it shut down. Since then I haven’t been able to start Internet Explorer normally, it reports there is a problem, says it’s looking for a solution and then reports it has to close down. I tried deleting temporary files etc, then I tried a system restore in safe mode, the restore was successful but it didn’t solve the problem and it knocked out my Norton firewall which was out for 5 minutes+ while it downloaded a fix. I then used sfc /scannow to see if there were any corrupt files but I found none, I didn’t do this in safemode, was that ok? This is a problem with 32-bit explorer version 8.0.7600.16385, the 64-bit version works fine. I know you’ll probably think why am I using 32-bit, well it was on my taskbar when I bought the PC. Although I can still use explorer, I’d like to get to the bottom of it as I’m worried it may be sinister, I’ve had a few attacks recently which Norton blocked. The strange thing is that I can use 32-bit explorer if I use inprivate, does anybody have a clue what may be causing this?