Have you got Automatic Updates turned ON Freda? Maybe that's why it all keeps appearing. You could set it to 'Notify'.

I've had no problems with IE7, (nor with SP2) which is amazing considering all the grief I had with this PC a couple of years ago - I had to learn how to re-partition my hard drive and reload Everything in a hurry - big learning curve. Now I have automatic 'notification' instead of 'update' from Microsoft and choose which and when to download.

By the way, it's a good idea to keep a fairly recent backup of your email messages, address books, files & favourites etc - I do mine at least once a month. It can be done fairly easily through Windows Explorer & a CD or DVD burner if necessary - you just need to know the right paths.