Internet explorer version 7 in my home & office computers

Switch to a better browser -- Firefox is big, reliable and has apps to block annoying ads. Opera is quick and (now) reliable.

I'll second that. Switch to FireFox and don't look back.

If you are running into trouble with IE 7, I would actually go with the newer/better version, IE8. IE is faster, and safer than IE 7, and with the 'compatibility mode' feature, you don't have to worry about pages appearing differently.
Here is a link to get you started:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/than...

Good luck!
-Kyler IE8 Outreach Team

Well, there's an unprejudiced recommendation for you !!

You make a good point fihart.  

I have IE8 and FireFox and FF is still faster and safer without question.

I personally find IE8 to be a bloated piece of crap compared to IE7. To the OP, try to remove any add-ons from IE7 as they can cause it to crash. Also change all settings back to the defaults.

Good call Grumpy. I recall way back I had some weird issue with explorer crashing along with IE and in the end what cured it was removing one of the add ons and reinstalling it.

In my case it was flash related.

I would 4th that you should get Firefox. Very simple and quite a deal faster than IE7.