Welcome to Just Ask Matt! - The IT industry’s answer to the help column, only slightly more medicated. Today, David writes:

I use XP Pro and usually run Mozilla 1.8a4, Privacy Guardian with Sygate Firewall along with NIS2005

I installed Sp2 all was fine (boot up took about 40sec) until I received three updates from MS, one of them was a MS virtual machine (java code I think), ever since this latest auto update the computer took two minutes to boot up, same when I un-installed Sp2 by using add/remove programs, I noted however it still left a load of files in.

After re-installing XP o/s I have reverted back to SP1 and wondering if I should go install Sp2 and use manual updates instead of automatically.

Any advice would be more than welcome, and thanks for a super web page.

I have to tell ya, David. Speaking for myself, I do not have many things automatic on my system. I am the sort of person that enjoys doing everything manually. Some call me old fashion while others may just say that I am being silly. I like to think that I am really more of a control freak than anything.

Getting back to your question now. I would recommend setting your automatic updates to only alert you. This means that you still have the ability to choose which updates you want to install and which ones you want to pass over. When running the updates engine, I like to use ‘custom’ in order to make sure I am only working with critical updates. Since I do all my driver updates myself, I just don’t feel like I am missing out on anything by doing it this way. Hope this helps!br>

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