Oh, there was just one more thing... </columbo>
About those forced updates:
As far as "forced updates" go, despite having a pretty high degree of technical knowledge, I neither have the time or the inclination to set up duplicate test machines for every single driver that comes along - which, lets face it - is the only way to really know if an update is going to have an adverse effect on my system.
Well, I have a much simpler strategy that I think gets 90% of the benefit of running a full duped test setup for only about 0.1% of the effort:
1) Wait for Patch Tuesday.
2) Don't install updates.
3) The following Friday, see if the internet is alive with reports of problems from the patches.
4) If not, go ahead and install. Otherwise wait for the patch to be reissued.
This strategy has fully protected me against all the recent faulty MS updates that have knocked other peoples' systems out. (And there have been some very bad ones in the past couple of years - BSoDs, reboot loops, broken video playback all spring to mind without even googling. I'm sure there were others too.)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
