I don't know what the hell is going on...

Okay, so I have IE 7.0.
I go to YouTube one day and it says I need to update my flashplayer. So I go to update it and it says when the download activeX bar pops up select allow. Instead a bar pops up saying 'internet explorer is running without add-ons'. So when I ask it how do I change this, it tells me to go to internet tools and click on manage add-ons. There is a manage add-ons button but it is grey and when I click on it nothing happens.
The last time this crap happened to me I went to the microsoft windows website and did every update they recommended hoping it would somehow get fixed.
It did.
And now a few weeks later it's doing it again. I try doing the same thing but it says windows has no new updates for my computer. So I leave the computer alone for a day. When I get back on and go to YouTube things are magically working again. WTF?
Now, when I open up my brower it doesn't even show my homepage, it shows a white page saying INTERNET EXPLORER IS RUNNING WITHOUT ADD-ONS.
So I think, fuck this. I'm gonna get firefox and see if it functions properly. So I download firefox.
The download completes and I've got all these nifty free anti-spy programs so I run a scan, delete what it finds, and restart my computer. I go to open up Mozilla Firefox (it has put an icon on my desktop and my start window... and guess what? Nothing comes up. But Internet Explorer is working again, though I have no idea if it will STILL BE tomorrow...
What the hell am I supposed to do?!

seems strange... i was originally going to flame you for using IE7 btw
but free anti spy stuff is crap the only good one would be Ad-aware se personal
ie effs up a lot of things with the ActiveX crap

Don't browse with IE, ever. If Firefox is screwed up, download Adware and Spybot and clean your computer from spyware.

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2007/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5&cdlpid=10045910

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

yes
forgot to mention spybot!