Unable to to open web pages and svchost.exe

Woke up yesterday morning and popped up IE and every place i went timed out. I had used the browser the night before with no problems. The other symptom is svchost using gobs o’ memory.

The only change would have been the automatic windows updates.

I thought I saw a thread on this problem but can’t find it, so before uninstalling the updates, thought I’d check with smart and beautiful group (sucking up). Firefox works fine, but wifey prefers IE.

Any help out the in nerd land?