Brand New Dell / Received IE Shutdown Errors

I just purchased a new Dell Dimension 9100 (new line for Dell). I loaded Mcafee VirusScan, Firewall and Privacy Service and then downloaded updates for all of the preceeding Mcafee programs (there were many). I also downloaded all critical Windows Security downloads. Everything is working fine except when I work with wordpad/notepad/word or other Microsoft programs. At random, when I open these files, I recieve IE shutdown errors. I created a new wordpad and notepad file, saved both and re-opened them: everything seemed fine. Then I ran Windows Explorer and when I tried to open the wordpad file with explorer, I received IE shutdown errors.