ie 7, close all tabs

Most times when I use ie7 if I have more than 1 window open, say google search and a page that I have gone to from the results page. If I can't go back using the back button and have to close the window at the top right hand side I get a box up asking do I want to close all tabs. If I click no, I can't get away from this page back to the google search. If I click yes all windows close including the google search page. I then have to start my search over again. This can also happen if I go straight to a site I want then click on a link on that page. If I have to close the second window at the top right hand corner I get the same message and everything closes. I have looked in Internet options to see if I can change the way web pages close, but can't find any settings to change. Anyone know if this is supposed to happen or if it can be changed, or is this a sign of malware although my security programmes haven't picked up anything. Thanks for reading and in advance for any help offered. hedley

You should not have any trouble closing tabs, you have probably just missed what to do, now to begin with when you go to close the browser with more than 1 tab open, it comes up and asks you if you want to close all the tabs, or just the current tab, it may be worth your updating to ie8 if you don't see that option, as this is the latest version. But the simplest way to close a tab is close it directly, take notice of each tab, now look at the right hand corner of the visible pages tab, you will see an x there, click on that and it will close that tab alone, this should sort your problem, hope it helps.