Please Help...Win2K Update!!!

[cmptr_iliterate]

Hello,
Let me first explain the situation and I'm open to
any suggestions. I'm using Win2K Professional for about 3
years now with no problems. Approximately 1 year ago I
FINALLY "scanned for updates" for Win2K and I installed
Service Pack 3 for Win2k Professional. Since then, I
haven't had any problems still but I know its imperative
to keep my security updated. So today, when I "scanned
for updates" I noticed I had approximately 41 critical
updates, 14 Windows updates and 2 driver updates. So I
manually "added" the critical updates that I thought
pertained to my pc. The approximately 7 of the 41 updates
that I didn't "add" were updates regarding Internet
Explorer 6.0 and Frontpage and Outlook. These are
programs that I currently DO NOT USE but if I do then I
will "add" these updates in the future. The updates I did
choose to "add" took me approximately 1 hour to do because
I'm using a "dial up modem". Everything as of ten minutes
ago installed fine.
Anyways, one thing I did notice in the "critical
updates" section was a file called "Windows 2000 Service
Pack 4" or something like that. Anyways, its safe to
assume that SP 4 is the "latest and greatest" service pack
versus the one that I currently have installed on my
machine which is Service Pack 3. I chose not to download
it because I just figured I would just manually "add" the
files that I wanted. So the questions I have are the
following based on my situation:
1) What habit should I get into with regards to
installing Windows Service Packs? In otherwords, should I
download a Service Pack once it becomes available OR is
downloading every other Service Pack a good practice since
the latest and greatest Service Pack will always include
previous Service Pack fixes and patches that I didn't
install???
2) As I mentioned before, 1 of the 41 critical
updates included "Service Pack 4". If I would have
downloaded and installed "Service Pack 4" instead of
manually choosing which critical files I wanted, would the
other 40 critical updates that were listed have been
included in Service Pack 4 download????
3) As I mentioned before, the manually critical
updates that I downloaded were successful. One thing I
did notice though is that when I went
to "start>settings>control panel>add/remove programs...I
noticed that I have a long LIST of all of the critical
updates that I did (and I have the option to delete
them). At at the end of the list I see the Service Pack 3
file that I installed last year. With this said, if I
CHOOSE in the future to install Service Pack 4, will this
tremendous list of critical updates disappear since they
will be included in Service Pack 4 OR should I manually
delete them FIRST before I download Service Pack 4 because
I do not want to duplicate files???? Would it mess up my
pc if I did choose to delete the critical updates that I
did today and then just download and install Service Pack
4 (I hate to sound girly but I just dont like the long
list of critical files that now appears in my add/remove
programs...I prefer how the Service Pack 3 file is just
one clean file. Assuming that Service Pack 4 will include
that long list of critical updates that appear when I
perform a "scan for updates" on my pc)?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you in
advance.

 

[Chuck]

First: Calm down.

Second: Service Packs are cumulative. You should have simply downloaded and
installed SP4 then run Windows Update . . . and then install just the
critical updates (yes the list is smaller, because they're in the service
pack) from Windows Update.

THEN, run windows update again and go ahead and pick and choose from the
recommended updates as you need them (e.g. - Windows Media Player, Direct X,
and others)