Lost Passwords

After leaving my work place my laptop was reconfigured as a new user with
adminstrator level. Both Outlook and IE would not retain passwords. I have
managed to fix Outlook by checking the MS support site and editing the
registry which was a bit scary for a non specialist like me! Anyway that was
successful but the IE problem was not fixed and I can't find a similar
instruction on the Knowledge base for IE. Any suggestions?
If IE needs a reinstall how do I do that as I do not have any program discs
for my laptop?