ie opens multiples windows in vista

I was just starting a session with ie in vista, and the next thing I knew the screen was filled with cascading reiterations of ie, running up 88 open windows!.
I unplugged my wlap, and kept right-clicking the taskbar to close group. Eventually it did, and everything ‘seemed’ normal, except nort is dead.
I was finally able to open norton, but found it was clobbered; av had been turned off, and it won’t scan, saying I need to uninstall and reinstall.
Classic gut feeling of ‘virus’, but anyone hear of this?
thanks, tom