Yes.

No.

MS doesn't release updates for fun.  Their intent is to resolve actual issues...

Yeah. But installing updates makes this machine slower. I've tested it both ways.

Yes.

No.

But do be smart about which updates you install.

Example, don't let Windows Update update your graphics driver. Get that from the graphics card maker. (nVidia, ATI, etc.) And only do that if your current driver is problematic.

A slow machine is better than a hacked machine. Security updates are called that for a reason. Not updating your PC isn't smart.

Well OK. It's just funny that it is faster before updates. Why I help fix up these low end machines is beyond me. You would think a single core AMD Athlon 2.4 GHZ could handle an updated machine. Maybe it needs more RAM. It will have to wait.

That ain't gonna happen.

On that note, after an OS re-install, the very FIRST thing I do is install all MS updates. They are a needed part of the OS. The last factory restore I did required 190 Windows updates afterwards. It got every one of them.

Judge the results of the repairs/upgrades with them installed, not without.

Well then what could be slowing down this machine? It has the AMD Atlon LE-1620 CPU running at 2.4 GHz, 2 GB of DDR2-800, and a 160 GB hard drive. It is running Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 with all the updates. Every driver on the system is up to date. And it's so slow it can't handle playing back a song with WMP while cruising a website with IE. When you scroll the web page, the music skips. Could it be the AV program? I'm using Avast. I have everything turned off in MSCONFIG and I turned off Windows Search and Windows Defender. The only programs running at boot are Avast and Core Temp, a little program that shows the CPU temp next to the clock. Going nuts here.

Open task manager, go to processes tab, click the show all box, bottom left. How many processes running while you have IE open and a song playing?

Look at what is using the most CPU and RAM.

Even old hardware shouldn't be making the music "skip" while scrolling a web page.

Avast is a resource hog, BTW.

Switched her to MSE as did I on XP. The speed gained was significant. Give it a try, Terry.

59 processes are running.

IE is using the most resources, followed by iTunes. IE is using 689K of memory, iTunes is using 14K of memory, Flash is third worst at 13K.

OK. But I really don't like that I can't turn off the auto updates. I will report back with my findings.

Kona, 59 processes is a lot for a single core processor. iTunes is a hog as well.

Hell, even my phone has a dual core processor.

After uninstalling Avast, installing MSE, and a reboot, the system is using 51 processes. All I have open is IE. IE is using 314K of memory. MsMpEng is using 47K. One of the 12 svchost.exe processes is using 83K. Explorer is using 13K.

Still slow as hell.

Malewarebytes scan comes up clean.

I would upgrade the CPU if I had the means. Maybe sometime around the holidays.

try one of them ?buntu with low resource usage?

no idea if it'll be better or worse...

I have an 'equivalent' vintage system running 7 ult 32bit ....a P4 1.6 with 2G ram.

Feels like it takes a month to boot....

....doesn't skip the audio while surfing though...

IE 10 and Winamp.

I have no interest in Itune crap.....or Avast.

I would but I need Windows for the majority of the programs I use and enjoy, and of course my games.

I never understood your deal with Winamp. iTunes is so much easier to use.

MSE? You really don't want to do that. It's like trying to stop an artillery shell with wet tissues. Do the MS updates as they have updated viral definitions as well as security patches you should not do without. Slower but safer is definitely the way to go.

At least create a Guest account and browse using that, and disable javascript in your browser.

With a low end or old machine, turn off 'hardware acceleration' in your browser. Hardware acceleration for an older machine really will just make it work slower. Use the software acceleration choice.

And is such a resource hog.

and to slow down your machine to give users the impression that win8 is better.

Last XP update I did near crippled my machine. Went from a 28 sec boot time to a 4:18 boot time. They really want me to upgrade my OS.

I'm by no means an expert but have you looked at other programs that might be running in the background?  Do you have several tabs open in IE and are they updating the info?  Sorry if you have looked at these or if I'm way off the mark. 

Not my experience at all. In fact precisely the reverse. MSE slows everything down on XP compared to Avast. On my Win7 machines, it's not noticeable, I think because they have better hardware.