Windows Software Updates To Avoid

There are very few Windows software updates that I tell people to specifically avoid, because most of them are useful and good. These updates I speak of are the ones you see if you perform a “custom” (versus express) update from Microsoft Update - which must be done use the Windows Internet Explorer web browser.

To date there are only two of the optional updates that if seen I instruct people not to install.

Windows Search 4.0

Is this a good product? Yes, it is. Does it work? Yes, it does. Are there any potential problems/issues with it? Not a one.

Why do I tell people not to get it? Because on Windows XP it will slow it down because of the background indexing. I’m not saying it will slow it down by a huge amount, but it is noticeable. In addition, it is actually faster to find stuff via the Windows Explorer (as in the file manager, not the browser) by going there, selecting a folder and pressing CTRL+F to launch the search.

Part of Search 4.0 is that it touts that you can search emails and files at the same time. All well and good I suppose, but you have to be using a Microsoft mail client for that to work. That’s worthless to those who use web-based mail or a non-Microsoft email client.

Microsoft Silverlight

Silverlight is for all intents and purposes Microsoft’s attempt at competing with Abobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash. The only time I have ever seen Silverlight used is on Microsoft’s web site and nowhere else, which to me makes for a rather useless plugin. You can use Microsoft’s web site easily without it as it doesn’t really serve any real advantage. Furthermore, stuff in the browser which is Silverlight enabled is slower and requires a rich graphical experience. This is absolutely worthless when all one wants to do is download a driver or read some help texts.

Like Search 4.0, Silverlight is not a bad product. It won’t cause any problems with your computer or browser. The reason I don’t recommend it is because I don’t know a single person out there that would find it useful. Being that’s the case, installing it simply adds up to wasted hard drive space, i.e. it’s useless to most.