Do they do the same if you download Firefox? I remember using IE exclusively to download FF immediately after installing XP, Win 7, 10 or whatever it was.
Try Tab Suspender. With it you can open as many tabs as you care to, it will auto-suspend tabs unless you choose tabs not to suspend. This way you can open as many tabs in as many windows as you want, even suspend all the tabs in one window or many windows.
One Tab is even better, it puts all open tabs into 1 tab as a long list, then you can open those as needed in new tabs or windows.
Do they do the same if you download Firefox? I remember using IE exclusively to download FF immediately after installing XP, Win 7, 10 or whatever it was.