This tab displays a list of every program you’ve installed onto your PC. To remove one from your system, click its name and then click the Remove or the Change/Remove button. Some program packages (like Microsoft Office) offer a Change button, too, so that you can add or remove individual components—just Excel, for example. When you click the Change button, have your installation CD handy, because the program may ask you to insert it into your drive.

You won’t need the first option here (“Add a program from CD-ROM or floppy disk”) very often, because most software programs come with their own installers. Using the CD or Floppy button is just a roundabout way of launching the installer on the disk you’ve inserted.

The Windows Update button, however, is useful indeed. It takes you to the same Microsoft Web page as the Start→All Programs→Windows Update command, at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. (Figure 8-4 shows what you might see.)

Here, you can get a list of the latest updates, bug fixes, and patches that Microsoft has released for your version of Windows XP. You’ll soon discover that Windows XP is a constant work in progress; Microsoft seems to come up with another one of these fixes, patches, or updates every couple of weeks.

Note that Windows Update isn’t quite the same thing as the Automatic Update feature, described in Section 10.4.

The Windows Update page generally offers two links: Express Install (updates that Microsoft considers urgent) and Custom Install (less urgent items). Clicking either link makes the Web page begin a remote-control scan of your PC, which is a little bit creepy but ultimately produces a list of updates that Microsoft considers appropriate for your copy of Windows.

Figure 8-4. Top: Clicking Express Install instructs Windows to check which updates you’ve already installed (middle). Be patient; this step can take a minute or so. Bottom: After the scan, Windows Update shows you a list of the patches that Microsoft thinks your machine lacks. Click Install to begin the process of downloading and installing them. (You may have to restart the PC when it’s over.)

To see which updates Microsoft is offering you (and how to install them), see Figure 8-4.

Think of this tab as a miniature version of the Windows XP Installer described in Appendix A. It affords you the opportunity to install (or remove) a new Windows XP software component without having to reinstall all of Windows.

You see this option only if your PC has Windows XP Service Pack 1 or 2 installed. It’s described in detail in Section 1.10.