Some time ago, in the dim and distant past, Microsoft came up with the great idea of creating an update service so that as bugs were discovered in their products they could be automatically downloaded and installed on the general public's computers. However recent experiences have led me to question whether this is really such a good idea.

I installed Vista SP3 on all my office machines not long after it came out and I've been somewhat alarmed by the continual stream of updates issuing from Microsoft in the weeks since then. I mean, just how difficult is it to get this stuff right first time?

For a good while now I've had the auto-update feature switched off, this is mainly to stop the updates rebooting my PC in the middle of the night when I need it running 24/7. So I get the opportunity to view updates before they get installed which is fortunate because some updates are a complete waste of download time and space unless I'm using my PC for watching high definition movies or listening to 5.1 surround sound. By looking at the details of each patch I can now decide if it's applicable to my machine, and if not I can discard it.

So my recommendations for using the Windows update feature are:

1. Make sure you back everything up regularly, just in case things go belly up (this is just good practice anyway). 
2. Disable the automatic installation of updates.
3. Inspect each update before installing, this can save you storage space and bandwidth for updates you don't need.
4. Don't install updates the second they appear in your system tray. Allow a week to pass for any issues to come to the fore.
5. Be prepared to roll updates out should anything go wrong.