Although in my previous article I may have made mention to the disadvantages of using Windows Update, lately I have noticed other things about the software that give it both merit and further thought.

Recently I worked on my Dad's new PC after he tried to switch the ram in his old one while it was on and wound up frying the mainboard, and I noticed a couple things about Windows Update. His girlfriend made sure that his copy of Windows XP home was completely up to date; installing just about every update that existed.

While I tried to explain to her that this was a somewhat paranoid way of protecting his PC, I noticed that without SP2 certain functions of his PC would be disabled, or not work as well as they should. You may notice this as well. For example, if you have a ATI Radeon card and would like the newest drivers - the manufacturer website recommends having SP2 installed as they work best with that platform.

Recently I was also working on a friend of the family's PC. It was a IBM Thinkcenter PC; and his USB, audio, and VGA drivers were not working properly. This could be fixed easily with a motherboard system disk, but he didn't have that. I visited the IBM website to get the right drivers, and it mentioned that the USB drivers were in SP2. As he had a pirated version of XP and could not download SP2, I had to install a stock version of SP2 I had with me.

After that, his USB port worked fine. So, to re-iterate: Windows Update is nessecary, most definetly, for updating to new service packs. Also, windows update is also very useful for finding drivers you might need for legacy devices and onboard devices. For more information related to finding drivers for legacy/onboard devices, refer to my guide on that topic.

Other then that - security updates - not all of them are completely nessecary. I will be writing an article on security updates shortly, so check back soon.