None taken, you should see what we do to each other over at the msdn-technet boards

But seriously, wanted a show of hands on which seems more important

the security hotfixes (that can be taken care of by judicious use of the manual and ipsec configuration)

or the functional fixes -ie bugfixes for kernal/usb etc et al

the debate started last wednesday with the blaster hotfix being worthless by some accounts over at msdn and I wanted to throw this one out to the people on the ground to get an opinion

Spheris ,

my personal view is that the security hotfixes should take precedence over any functional improvements.

My reason being that in the context of a custom XP install, users will be improving the functionality of XP to their own tastes with the various pieces of non-standard software that they choose to install.

Whereas the seemingly never ending saga hotfixes and service packs supplied by MS , though not perfect, offers a solution to discovered security problems that is the easiest option for most users.

cya.

A fair assement, but I'm curious as to how many people are actually using ipsec to lock their machines down, negating the use of the "security" hotfixes being necessary at all.

Thanks very much for the reply and if you can give me some feedback on your own use of ipsec when you have time