I had similar problems with IE under XP. IE is not the most reliable browser available. Have you tried Firefox? I don't honestly know whether it's compatible with Vista but one of the reasons I started using it (in XP) was because of the constant stream of patches I had to download & install for IE just to keep it working and "safe". Firefox has better features too, such as tabs. Try it and see if it solves your problem - just download it and set it as your default browser - you can easily uninstall if you're not happy with it.