WHY does Internet explorer crash?!?!?

So I have recently tried to open my IE and it won't open, when i double click the shortcut it runs, lags then disappears without even sending me a crash notification. So I went to download IE 8 and do a fresh install and such, and I waited a freaking hour for it to download and it STILL crashes! I need IE to enable an add-on for my explorer window. It is the styler toolbar which is grayed out and I heard it could be fixed by enabling it on IE. Any suggestions how to get IE working? or how to check IE add ons without using IE? thanks