Problems with Internet Explorer.Follow

So I finished installing the game and got all hyped to play. Then the patcher wouldnt launch....and wouldnt launch after turning off my firewall. So I went to tech help and looked through topics. After about an hour I discovered a topic that said you need IE to play EQ2 since the patcher launchs through it. I have a problem with my IE and its all messed up and wont launch. Iv tried installing several different IE versions but each says either a newer version is installed, or I need an older version to uprade or service pack 2 which requires working IE to DL.

Does anyone have any clue at all what I can do....iv been struggling with this for about 3 hours now!