I run XP SP2 with 3 hotfixes for actual bugs (I have these downloaded and saved because Microsoft makes them difficult to dl and install - requiring passwords!! to unzip them of all things). I will never install SP3, VISTA, Win7, MinWin, or anything "LIVE" from MS (I got bitten by WinLiveID - but that's a different - and long - story). I don't want anymore MS spyware and controlware on my PC than I've already got. When XP SP2 doesn't do it for me, then I'll do Linux.
Anyway...
I don't do Windows Updates at all because I don't have time to research every patchup to the poorly designed OS and I don't trust Microsoft not to sneak something ELSE onto my PC that they failed to mention in the patch description. So, in this case, do I need BITS (or the other 3 items) for anything?
In all the years I have been running XP, AVAST, and ZoneAlarm, I have never gotten any malware - and no adware or spyware since I've been running Spywareblaster with autoupdate. I also have unnecessary ports and services disabled (thanks to you) and some other security tweaks. I use image files of my C partition, maintain a backup duplicate of my data partition (and some C files I don't want clobbered when I restore an image), and I encrypt (256-bit AES with long nonsense key) EVERYthing on my PC that could possibly be used for financial or identity theft.
That said, I would still like to have HONEST patches that ONLY do what they say they do, that FIX software failure points - and do NOTHING ELSE that isn't stated in the description - AND don't disable some feature without stating that fact in the description.
Is there a list anywhere of simple descriptions of TRULY "critical" patches specifically for simple, wired, un-networked PCs - that can be downloaded and SAVED and installed separately later? Is the BITS file group necessary if you download and save a patch from MS? If so, is there somewhere else to get patches that doesn't depend on these dangerous services?
MaggieAnn