I just thought, your original question was whether or not it was possible to share your browser session with IE. Unless you do this explicitly, you may require a different login for your Python program and for your IE user. If the Python program does not get the same cookie as used by IE, or vice-versa, and tries to login, you may find this resets the login in the other browser.
Oh and at risk of starting a flame war <a href="www.getfirefox.com" reason="obligatory pro open source link">get a real browser.</a> -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
