It seems MS security patches increasingly break things more than fix bugs these days (Windows 2000 SP3 was what finally prompted me to upgrade to XP).

Take IE6 as an example here are few of the issues that I (and quite a few others seem to be having):

'.gif' images do not display on certain web pages (this bug is seemly random and can sometimes be cured by refreshing the page several times).

The Windows Update site does not work correctly (I know MANY peeps have had this one crop up... and there doesn't seem to be one coherrant solution to this one, at least from MS anyhow). I have found that accessing the site via https:// works... but is VERY slow!

Embarrasingly for MS thier own website fails to display on thier flagship browser! (the java frames on the side of the pages don't load correctly). Sometimes the site loads fine, others not... and there's no reproducable pattern to this. Mozilla (with java plugin) does a MUCH better job more often than not!

Most of these problems began after the installation of SP1... SP1 for IE6, and then seems to have been made worse by one or more of the streams of security patches for IE in recent months.

So where does that leave me? 'To patch or not to patch?' I don't think this is acceptable when i have to choose between security vs software that actually works as its supposed to!

For now Im making as much use of open source / MS alternative apps as I can under Windows (Mozilla, Openoffice.org, Trillian etc). Maybe when somebody creates a version of Linux that doesn't require a degree in computer science to use and provides an easy way to run and install the apps I want then I'll make the switch...

Just use Mozilla and only use IE when you need to. (Sites that are IE specific such as M$ sites). I recently "switched" heh (We need an Mozilla to IE switch commercial)..from IE to Mozilla about 2 months ago (Kept tabs on Mozilla but it wasn't really "there" yet for me) and haven't looked back since. (Well except for the IE specific sites.)

Now that I am using St. Bernard's UpdateExpert I don't have to worry about using WindowsUpdate...so about the only time I need IE is if I encounter a Mozilla bug (very rare) or if I'm browsing the M$ KB.

Ditto here, I started the 'switch' with Mozilla, and have since transferred to Phoenix, because I didn't need an IRC client, email client, etc. Also one minor pet peeve with Mozilla was that I couldn't CTRL+ENTER to autoadd the www. and .com prefix and suffixes, but I can with Phoenix.

I have had good luck with installing w2k sp3 and ie6 sp1 slipstreamed. You can get ie6 sp1 slipstreamed by using a 98 machine and downloading (save) it with the 2000 and xp files.

So are you making an unattended install script that follows the installation of 2kSP3?