text: how can i uninstall internet explorer,and then reinstall? i keep getting messages that ie has encountered a problem and needs to close.help please! you can't if you have windows xp.  internet explorer uses the same components as windows explorer. try opening my computer and typing www.yahoo.com in the address bar, all of a sudden windows exlorer turns into internet explorer!  if you have no address bar then click on view/toolbars/address bar, and it will appear! anyhow if you are getting errors in internet explorer, just download the latest version from microsoft.com (so far its version6, but there is a beta test version of 7) and re-instal it. hope that helped you