Last night, as we were settling in from our trip home, I started applying the backload of patches to my eldest son's Windows XP PC that had accumulated during the month it sat idle. There were 9 “critical” updates, 16 “recommended” updates, and 7 updated device drivers.

Since everything else in my house (well, at least since the security patch reboots killed my Compaq server) runs on Mac OS X, the security patches on the single XP machine have become a disproportional administrative burden. So has the general upkeep of the machine–deleting off all the crap software my son inadvertently downloads, ferreting out spyware, and getting rid of the pre-loaded garbage that HP shipped on the hard drive have been an ongoing distraction.

And I'm a guy who's administered Windows and Unix networks. Imagine what it's like for Grandma when she gets a Windows XP PC and a cable modem for Christmas. The security patch feature has to be made more simple–and more automated–for home users, or every new vulnerability in Windows will turn Grandma's PC into a member of the legion of undead PCs trashing your network.