Perhaps MS are installing crashware with their latest XP updates to encourage you to downgrade to Vista.

Sadly, that wouldn't surprise me at all, treewind. The only reason I still use ZoneAlarm is to make sure Windows can't download updates without me knowing about it. I would (more or less, subject to any loopholes not yet discovered!) trust the Windows firewall to protect me against unauthorised third party access to my system, but I certainly dont trust it to protect me from Microsoft themselves (either to download stuff I don't want or need, or to upload private information from my system to them).