<quote>What I would like to see happen is when any user connects to the internet for the very first time on a new computer internet explorer should automatically go to the windows update site and begin downloading any updates that have been released instead of going to the msn home page.</quote>

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i believe that one or two Linux distros (Mandrake or SuSe) does this already: during the install process, there is an option to update the system. But this still doesn't solve the "update before connecting to the internet" issue...maybe the system could be running in a sandbox at this time, with a firewall in place that blocks everything but the update program, until the update is complete?

One more reason for billy boy to adopt an open-source attitude... ;-)