Well, getting back to Microsoft, I don't really see what they are actually proposing as they seem to be saying that security updates will continue with patch Tuesday?

Thus far IE has been pretty monolithic with one or maybe two releases in the lifetime of an OS, unlike the dynamic development of other browsers.

My real concern involves applying updates whilst I have something else happening on my machines. I can just imagine getting to the end of a large and complex components order and Windows update popping up and trashing the lot.................

I must admit that I have toyed with the idea of putting them in the untrusted zone or blocking them at the firewall

I must admit that I prefer to trust Secunia PSI and Belarc Advisor. Both will tell me if I am missing something from MS, and Belarc Advisor even tells you if you have an MS update that MS think has worked but hasn't.

That app has helped me on several occasions when a failed MS update has been giving weird problems

Well, if they don't sort Winders Ate there won't be a problem, as it tells me that I am up to date when I am not.............. also, I would have thought that updating your security software was critical rather than optional?

This leads me on to what I wanted to post to try to cheer up gore.

Having been told by Winders Ate that I was up to date, I tortured it into admitting that I had three critical and one optional (the security) updates.

Having downloaded them, and told it to install, it chuntered away for a while then gave me these messages:

"Restart your PC to finish installing updates"

"Your PC will automatically restart in two days if you do not restart now"

Now, in my understanding of the UK's "Sale of Goods (Implied Terms) Act", that means that Winders Ate is guaranteeing 48 hours uptime? Rather than the traditional "up until now from the last time I crashed, and from now until the next time I do"

Shock! Horror!.................... will the Redmond Armani Suits spot this error in time? .................... watch this space for the next thrilling installment................

Actually, I haven't managed to crash it yet................ but I haven't managed to crash this 32bit Vista either !!!??? Hah! I understand that...... I opened the case yesterday and stuck in a 24x SATA dual layer and replaced the 4GB of 1066 DDR2 with 8GB of DDR3 1333.

Maybe the time has come to move on to the 32bit Winders Ate box?

As for your auto.......... yeah, you are lucky to be alive, and of course he drove off............... you might have had an infrascope or starlight starbright?