MS Techies: A ? regarding all these WIN patches/updates

[hlthe2b]

I have had to set up a new laptop after my surge protector ....didn't... and my primary computer went bye bye.

It seems that I have had to download 100s of MB of patches, critical updates, and service patches for WINXP since booting it up. Beyond taking countless hours of my time, here is my question:

Are these never ending patches and updates going to overwhelm my available hard disk space soon or do some of them over write others in the system . WHile I have a 20GIG hard drive, I'm seeing more and more computers with 60 or more GIGS and am wondering if this is where we are headed-- i.e., even a large hard drive is taken up by windows OS alone.

BTW, I can NOT believe that the average JOE is expending as much time as I do maintaining updates, antiviral scans, and firewalls. Surely this is going to come back to bite MS eventually. :evilfrown:

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. It will add a little bit but not a major amount

Mostly it overwrites and updates files. Be certain when upon starting a particular patch, if it gives you the option to archive old files or not to (to uninstall the patch later), to say NO (unless you're super paranoid. Then say YES. The archive can be deleted later. But 20gig is not a lot in today's terms...)

All this is the price of using Windoze. Unfortunately, it's necessary to keep things patched and updated. And it will continue on as long as Bill Gates owns the universe. :evilgrin: