Set 'em up again...

Have you updated yet? If not, your computer, your family, and Western Civilization As We
Know It may have only hours to live!! Yeah, it's time for the latest in the on-going series
of Windows updates.

I know I shouldn't be flip about this--as far as I can tell, it really is important to
put these patches in place if you're running a current-generation Windows system with
current-generation IE. The problem is that I've got a couple' dozen Windows machines here

in my mini-swamp, and it takes a real chunk of time to update all of them. Oh, I know, I
could just have everything auto-update, but the idea of letting someone else tell my
computers when they're going to make changes to the operating system--well, it just makes
me uncomfortable.

I've been looking at low-cost patch management solutions lately, but I keep feeling like
there ought to be something better. So, help me out here--what are you using? I'd love to
find a good open-source solution, but I'm not willing to take the "throw out all the Windows
code and go to Linux" leap just yet. Until then, I guess I'll just keep complaining--and
asking you for suggestons.