The .IE5 virus- how to get rid of?

While surfing the web a cheeky temp file opened as a new tab. It was all in code. After it opened itself my laptop freaked out and I couldn't even shut it down properly! After deleting all the temp files I found the file was actually located in a .IE5 folder. I deleted the contents but 2 .dat files were apparently still in use so there they stayed. Well, it's a virus and I can't get rid of it. My laptop acts like its constantly trying to open something. Please help before I explode -_-