I had a frustrating time today trying to understand why IE was ignoring a fixed width style on a TD. IE was happily ignoring it and resizing the column to the content. It turns out I needed to apply this little CSS attribute that I thought I would note down since I will instantly forget it;
{table-layout:fixed;}
Thanks! This fixed my problem immediately. A quick note to others who come along, this worked when applied to the table, not td.