is there a shortcut to closing multiple windows, particularly
Explorer?  Our office uses IE for our intranet, and each link opens in
a new window.  Looking for a better way to close all windows without
shutting down or doing one at a time.

Hi aisi,

Here are three methods - I hope at least one of them works for you.

1) Closing Multiple Windows:
"If you go to web sites that open up multiple windows,
Pressing the Ctrl-W keys seems to work better than Alt-F4"
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/ie_tips.htm#close_multiple_windows

2) CSALT "Tip of the Week" #2 - Closing Multiple Windows With One Click:
"Do you often end up with a lot of related windows together on your
screen -- for example, after double-clicking a folder, then
double-clicking one inside of that, and so on? When you're ready to
close them all, don't waste time clicking each and every X caption
button (the one in the upper-right corner of each window). Just hold
down Shift as you click the X of the last window you opened. Doing so
closes that window and all of its "parents" in one fell swoop. This
works on all versions of Windows."
http://www.practicepro.ca/information/doc/tipsonkeyboardshortcuts.rtf

3) Quickly closing multiple windows at once:
"With Windows 98 and I.E. 4.0, there is an easy way to close multiple
windows simultaneously.  To do this, simply hold the Ctrl key and
click on each window's icon in the taskbar. Then simply right click
any one of them and click close."
http://www.computertips.com/Windows/Windows98/Miscellaneous/19990116001.htm

If you need more assistance, please post a clarification request
before closing/rating my answer.

Thank you,
hummer

Google Search Terms Used

ie "closing multiple windows"

What an excellent service!!  glad you could present multiple options
as the first two did not work, but the 3rd worked like a beauty. 
THANK YOU!!!

There's a little utility program called CLOSEALL that will close all
(or selected) windows.

It's part of a windows utilities package called WinUtils, which can be
downloaded here:

http://www.aylott.com.au/winutils.htm

Hi aisi,

Terrific - thank you for the good news.  The funny thing is, I had the
third choice in the first position but right before I posted it as an
answer, I switched it to the third position - haven't a clue why!

Thank you for your thank you - and welcome to GA,
hummer