Virus help, please

Becky has gotten a virus of some sort on her laptop. Unfortunately, it
prevents us from running the virus protection/removal software (Norton) so
we can't even identify it, let alone do anything about it. A brief check
online suggests that finding any reference to it based on a description of
the effects might be a long and tedious job. I'm hoping that someone here
can at least point me in the right direction.

When she turns the computer on everything runs slowly and, at apparently
random intervals, one or more copies of IE will open......sometimes as many
as 15 or so in rapid succession, all accessing the same site....or trying
to, at any rate. Last night, I was able to open an IE window myself and
begin downloading all of the latest updates from Norton, but the download
couldn't be completed and I couldn't run the software.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Wolfgang