It does that here, too… sometimes. Then again, Notes sometimes hangs like that even on machines that don't have VIC installed. I'd like an answer to it as well. As it stands, when it occurs I use killnotes.exe to terminate the Notes processes.
It's particularly annoying when you're using the VIC Welcome page as your home page. This is the situation for which GoVIC.exe was written. GoVIC.exe will clear the WelcomePageOpened flag from Notes.INI so you don't have to clear it manually. I just always start Notes using that.