FWIW, I sent the link to my computer tech and this is the response I got from him. I'm not sure I understand it but I will post it in case others do.
Thank you for this. I did know about the tool, however, it requires running Microsoft's WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) validation tool. Once that tool is used, if it fails the validation, no more automatic updates will come through. Microsoft's WGA, which is under a lot of debate by industry experts (especially the "advantage" part as in who is getting the Genuine Advantage?), delivers many false positives, meaning your software could be 100% valid and still, because of bugs in the "validator" tool, fail. While failure does not mean you have no recourse, the process of correcting it requires a time consuming bout of calls to Microsoft and the recertification of the operating system. Without running the validator the automatic updates continue to flow through.
All that said, when you do decide to install IE7, you have no choice but to run the validator, however, as long as IE7 is excluded from updates the validator is not a requirement.
Two computers out of our 10, here, have IE7 installed on them and so far I have seen a lot of issues with Adobe Acrobat interfaces, which I know you use a lot with the insurance company websites. Fortunately, I have other workstations without IE7 to back me up when I run into these issues. I think it will be at least a few months before many of these compatibility issues get worked out.
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