Even if you were on WinXP I would not seriously recommend the "new" layouts. Windows tells you enough lies without deliberately adding layers of automatic stuff that Mickey justifies by "it does it because it's good for you and you're too stupid to have a computer that you control."
Gargoyle -
I haven't investigate them all, but under "File | Save As" IE offers four different ways to save a web page:
You can save "web page complete" which will give you a .htm file and a folder with the same name. The folder will contain locally linked bits and pieces called for in the .htm script. It should contain only the bits and pieces actually used by the page you save, so it shouldn't take any longer to download than opening the page in your browser.
You can save as a "web archive," which is described as a "single file .hmt." I frankly don't know what this is - haven't tried it.
You can save as "web page, HTML only" which again I haven't tried, but you'd assume it saves the .htm without the separate folder of insert bits. It may insert the bits directly into the file, or it may use placeholders.
You can save as "text file, .txt," which gives essentially the same result as Copy and Paste into Notepad or Copy and Paste As Unformatted Text into Word (Edit|Paste Special|Unformatted Text). If you "copy" like I do, you probably omit selecting some of the header and footer stuff on a lot of pages, and the "Save As | Text File" will do a "Select All" to decide what to save, but there should be NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE between "Save As | Text File" and pasting into Notepad - for the same selection of what to save. You may, in fact, find it a little better, since it does pad some tabs and gives a fairly clean layout to work with.