A year or so ago, my IT-administrator-controlled work PC started shutting IE when you typed a web address in the address bar. After some experimentation, I discovered that if I typed "http://www.somesite.com" instead of just "www.somesite.com", IE worked fine, i.e. it had something to do with domain identification. I reported it to IT, who could not solve the problem (they wanted to re-install XP, but I asked them not to), and 6 or 8 months later, the problem disappeared. Presumably some MS update fixed it. Maybe this will help you (if you can train your wife to type "http://" in the address bar.)