running windows (or office) update closes IE

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Recently upgraded a fairly old Toshiba Portege laptop to WinXP, then SP2.
Whenever I go to Windows Update and choose either Express or Custom, my
system is checked for whatever updates are needed and then just at the point
where the list of available updates would be displayed, IE closes.

Right now I only have the OS installed, but on a prior attempt I had already
installed Office03 and found that running Office Update produced the same
behavior.

Also, it is interesting to note that if I have Automatic Updates on, they
are downloaded in the background and seem to install with no problem. Note
that I can't check my Update History either as this also causes IE to close.

One last thing: I upgraded the first time from W2K which was on the machine.
The second time I used the original Win98 boot diskette and installed WinXP
on a newly formatted hard drive.

I was only able to Google one close reference to such a problem, for which
the solution SEEMED to be an upgrade of the video adapter driver. As I
mentioned, this is a fairly old system and I am unable to find any driver
other than the one WinXP installation provides.

Thanks in advance!
TBW