Ok, this may not be the best reason until I tell you that next time you buy a computer, you will get an operating system that is more cut back than XP Home. To get to the same features you have on XP Home, you will have to spend $200 to upgrade. And a low end “Professional” version is $400, more than the cost of the computer!
Here is the story, a Russian school teacher in some remote location in Russia is being sued by Microsoft because the copies of Windows that were pre-installed on the computers he purchased for the school were pirated.
My suggestion: Remove all Microsoft products and use Linux. It is free, you can get the “Better than Pro” version at no extra cost and, if you want, all the servers you need can be thrown in for free.
I have a laptop with XP-home, set for automatic updates, very many updates were received and installed. Until in January 2007 Word Perfect(8) refused to start up. I suspected an update. So I went back to the system 14 days back (at least that works), disabled automatic updates and the computer does at least wat I want it to do. Be warned.
greetings
Hans