If you're playing games on a computer, you're probably running Windows.

XP Service Pack 3 will be going out over Windows Update on the 10th, and the redistributable package became available last month to IT professionals. Vista's first service pack is also available.

Keeping your windows system up to date is annoying at best, but because so many people use it, it's the primary target of anyone working on a worm, virus or trojan so keeping it up to date isn't really optional. You're also most likely running a firewall and antivirus, and if you're not, you should be. I've provided links to my recommendations for those, but there are lots of options.

Updates are another story. No one updates windows except for Microsoft, and the options to do so are remarkably limited. You can download each update individually going through the KB articles, which is stupid, or you can use Windows Update, which can tie up your system downloading and installing updates for a remarkable amount of time. Following that, you might be treated to the Failed Updates section, which has a list of what didn't install and not a single explanation as to why.

Autopatcher Updater is a program that gets a list of updates and downloads them all, then gives you the opportunity to install them all (or just what you select) at once, along with a collection of other tweaks and utilities, several of which I have found useful in the past. It runs as one session of downloading, one session of installing, and one restart. This is especially useful after a fresh install of windows, but is just as convenient for doing regular updates because of it's reliability (it downloads the individual update installers from the knowledge base, which do not rely on the windows update web app) and because you can download them and install them later.

Once downloaded, the directory is also portable, so you can copy it to any other computers you might have. I usually update my desktop first, then copy everything over with a flash drive to update my laptop. Updates are saved on your computer, so they only need to be downloaded once.

Supports English, Portuguese and Italian Windows XP, 2000, 2003 and Vista. It will also get updates for Office XP, 2003 and 2007.