Dell is wonderful but IE and other things keep crashing my Gmail and my IE connections in the middle of things. Help.

I was given my XPS 1530 for Christmas a couple of years ago--my son both us both new laptops.  I finally got used to Vista...mostly, and then, foolishly, after it went out of BETA, upgraded to IE8.  I had troubles with IE7 so I thought this would be better.  I was seriously wrong.  I then took IE8 off, but still have no Adobe now and it won't install, I have shut off Defender, but still my Data Protection shuts down IE every few minutes and I am a heavy user since I am a Masters student and need to have all sorts of files and downloads going....and my Gmail is still in 'still working' I am sure.

These are not Dell problems but the 'help' from Microsoft etc is sooo poor--the help pages never tell you, or at least me, what to do about the problem that I have...the forums are full of suggestions but sometimes if I try them I end up with a real mess. 

Since my programs were the ones requested when my son had my laptop 'built', is there a Dell service in the Fort Worth-Dallas area that could just reset the thing?  Or put it 'right?'  I know there are dozens and dozens of service packs, and all sorts of things, but I am really tired of having my work lost, and having to copy my email into a Word document so I can paste it back into the email after I shut down the still loading and gmail, and then reopen it.

Can you offer me some advice, or a place to get good, simple advice?  I live overseas most of the time so I will have to wait to get back to the US (although Puerto Rico is theoretically the US, it isn't, if you know what I mean), and I am a mid-level user, but I hate to try anymore 'fixes' myself. 

Thank you.