I am experimenting by suggesting you do this because this worked for me but
may not be specific to your problem but will not do you operating system any
harm.
I would like you to post back with any result so I can understand what has
happened please.
I have IE7 and had all sorts of problems then a computer crash. Before I
finally decided to reinstall the operating system I tried to open MyComputer
from the icon on the desktop and all the icons disappeared and the screen
froze with the beautiful Windows Bliss screensaver by itself on the desktop.
Try this:
...this is one thing that fitted my situation because I found Adobe Flash
Player version 6 files in the Macromedia folder in my computer. You can look
to see what is in the Macromedia folder before you try this.
Go to the Macromedia folder by opening these folders:
Windows, then, Windows32, then, Macromedia
....you can safely delete all the files and folders in that Macromedia folder,
....if you don't know you have another Macromedia application in your
computer follow the instructions above from Adobe.com.no matter what you see
in there you can delete it, just be sure you haven't installed any other
Macromedia application that you don't want to delete.
....then follow the instructions in the Adobe.com link:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157&sliceId=2