kat

The critical update is most unlikely to be related to your immediate problems. Microsoft are sending them out all the time to fix (usually) security loopholes in the software, as this one does. While it's not impossible for an update to be compromised, I'm sure Microsoft (and most large software companies) go to great lengths to see that that doesn't happen; they have enough complaints already without that! (Not that I complain about them; they get attacked (by hackers) more often because it's a large platform base to aim at. I have a dual boot Linux (Fedora) on my machine, but I used XP almost all of the time. I have Firefox and the soon to be neglected Netscape on my machine but I use IE almost all the time. The only major MS component I don't use is the Windows Media Player - I use Jet as standard. As long as you take care (and, as they say, RTFM) Windows is fine).

Mick