Is there any way to get rid of Internet explorer or even prevent it from opening up

Go to "Add or Remove Programs" on the left tabs go under "Add/Remove Windows Components" and uncheck "Internet Explorer" and click next.

^This and if you want to remove Explorer, i am sorry you can't but you can use another Shell.

Also uninstalling IE7 will revert it to IE6, better option would be install another browser and make it default.