[ree]

Well that's a shame it came to that. And that's certainly not an endorsement for IE 7 being "separate from the OS."

One thing I forgot to mention that's actually saved me a couple times is XP's System Restore. It will monitor for changes to "sensitive" files that sometimes get updated during product installs and create system restore points. If you remember this when you first notice your system behaving oddly, sometimes you can restore to the most recent restore point and thing's will start working again. It doesn't work all of the time, but it's worth trying.