Not an option

A customer called for help re-installing our software on his Vista machine. He confided that he had to reformat his hard drive after running Windows Updates -- something went horribly awry and the machine wouldn't boot.

Apparently he spent quite a bit of time on the phone with M'soft Tech Support troubleshooting the issue before being told he needed to reformat and reinstall Vista. Ouch.

Then the M'soft tech told him to

Never Select the Optional Updates
Yes, M'soft puts the Optional updates there, right in front of you, but that implies in no way, shape, or form that you should actually download and install them.

Remember that now.