Those run auto on my system full time (part of why i always have lag)...
and at this point IE7 won't even open without faulting...
and when my system was new from the store and i loaded XP, before IE7 i still could not open the task menu with control/alt/delete....
BUT i don't think IE7 has anything to do with the current issue, because i wasn't using it at the time the problem occurred.