Thank you. I guess if I'd searched a little more I would have found that - usually I'm good at searching, not that time.
I've just begun fiddling with WINE recently, it's fun when you get something working w/it. I've actually had WINE work BETTER than Vista in some cases.
I ran a handy script which installed IE6 (& 5.5) - but, I guess it doesn't really integrate it w/WINE the way that would make it fix this issue?
If I hadn't gotten any replies about how work around the "won't install w/o IE" issue my next step was going to be to try to install in on a Windows PC then copy the folder over (like you suggested in your reply).