IE7 crashes with link in mail

My friends have a Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop using Avast AV, ZoneAlarm and set for automatic update for IE7 and SP3.

When clicking on a link in Outlook Express, IE7 crashes. The same link can be viewed by clicking on link in Yahoo email, which opens new page but when closing the page, it crashes IE7 and Yahoo mail.

Due to the timing of when this started, I think it is caused by SP3 but don't know what other problems may be caused by uninstalling SP3 to check it out. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

It bombs out, goes away, is no longer there to function. IE has to be loaded again to do anything with it, like surfing or reading yahoo mail.

 

Thanks for reply but that didn't work; any other suggestions?

 

FWIW UPDATE in that none of the suggestions for IE worked/changed the
IE 7 crash but using Firefox, now their default browser, did not
display the same situation. It could be a bad install of IE7 and
resinstall would cure the problem but I did not have a copy with me and
my friends are in a dialup only area at this time so we did not
download IE7 to reinstall.

[sorry for the lengthy delay but the ailing computer and I are miles
away from each other and it took time to make a trip]

 

Thanks Pete but uninstalling SP3 was not attempted because Firefox was installed and there was no similar crash with it. Wouldn't SP3 affect Firefox the same way if it were the cause?

 

Well, I didn't like leaving the computer misfunctioning and may visit them again with a copy of IE7 to see if it can be cleared up. My guess is that the unit was closed down while auto updates were installing.

Thanks for input.

 

I'm visiting my friends again to finish the job. Ie7 could not be uninstalled until SP3 was uninstalled, FWIW. Reinstallation of IE7 gave the same problem, so we didn't gain anything.

I could not find a way to prevent auto updates from reinstalling SP3 so they will have the same situation on the computer with IE but only if they use IE as the problem does not occur with Firefox.

 

Thanks, that's how my computers are set up but I didn't know that was the only way to stop a download. I thought I read that one could go to Windows Update and use Administration to stop a specific download but found nothing so will change accordingly to what you said temporarily, long enough to stop SP3. Thanks again.