It seems like every, I mean every time I boot up my PC, it's saying there are updates - and it takes sooooo long to get them working. Is it really worth it? I am tempted to update my PC like twice a year.

yes they do. I don't know what kind of updates you still have left, but you can also let it install the updates when you shut down the PC

The problem is - every time I boot up the PC, I get all of these automatic updates want to be installed. I am still waiting for my PC to shut down. Finally - just went. From the time I posted this question - until now - the PC was *shutting* down.

This is aggravating.

Just tell them to install when you shut it down.

Screw automatic updates, make it manual and check for updates like once a week. And only download the Windows updates, you should manually update your drivers (Windows update fails these more often than not). That's what I do.

I would comment to say yes, install them, but yesterday WU failed on everything, corrupted my system and refused to let me turn on Windows Firewall.

I'm posting from Linux, but I can't say that's better for frequency of updates. You get just as many (though you can usually install them without restarting and do it when you want not when MS wants) but you have to do OS upgrades every 6 months.

Seems like that time of the year.  The other day a friend updated his Mac and half his programs stopped working.  At first I thought it was Apple killing pirated software but he swore he hadn't pirated them and even had a couple of the boxes laying around to prove it.

Realistically, you will probably be fine without installing them as long as you have the latest service pack for your Windows. However, I would still say to install them. It is better to be safe than to be sorry. The time needed to install the updates is much less than the time you will need to get things working again if something bad does happen because of the lack of updates.

I always set my PC to automatic notification, and then manually choose which updates I want. It saves you a lot of time. Why install silverlight, if no one uses it? same for updates to IE or WMP unless I really need to. Just make sure you get all the security updates in a timely manner and you are good to go.

Vista is a pain in the ass with pop-ups.