Today's Windows Updateincludes a new update ( KB955020) described as "Important" that merely updates words in Window's dictionaries -- at least that is the description provided. It is 62.9 MB and may require a system restart. I have several questions about this update: 1) Why would an update to a dictionary be rated "Important"? This rating issupposed to be for serious security issues. 2) Why would a dictionary update require a restart? 3) Why would a dictionary update require 62.9MB? Possibly,the description used does not go with this update or the explanation provides only 2% of what is actually being modified with the update. For now, I am not going to install it.

Whisper If you take a look at the article: The words "Friendster," "Klum," "Nazr," "Obama," and "Racicot" are not recognized when you check the spelling in Windows Vista and in Windows Server 2008: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955020 This will give you a detailed description of the update as well as the actual files that are updated. It even gives you a manual workaround that you can use instead of using the update. 'Important' is just above Recommended in theupdate scale. For serious security updates you will see they are marked as 'Critical'. As far as arestart is concerned, any files that cannot be replaced while the system is loaded will require a restart, this willreplace thefiles before windows loads. For your question aboutthe size of the updated files, remember, these are 'replacing' the existing files on your system. If you look at the size of the files on your computer before the update and compare them with the updated files, you will see that the overall increasewill be approximately1-2MB, depending on the version you are updating. If this post helps to resolve your issue, click the Mark as Answer button at the top of this message.By marking a post as Answered, you help others find the answer faster. Ronnie Vernon Microsoft MVP Windows Desktop Experience

Ronnie. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I did read the knowledgebase article about the update. That was what caused me to post. It still seems strange to consider a halfdozen additions to a dictionary be an important update. Microsoft was aware that these words were not recognizedin March 2007 when it issueda similararticle for Office 2003(KB934269). At that time, it did notconsider the recognition of these words important enough to issue an update at all -- much less an "important" one.It merely explained howto add words to a dictionary. I supect the reasonthesewords now rate an"important" updateis that Microsoft wants to avoid anyembarassmentif journalists were to publicize that a potential President's name is not recognized in Micrcosoft's dictionaries. If I recall, the "important" rating will push this update to allusers that have Windows Update set to Automatic. If it were rated as "recommended" or "optional", people would have totake action to install it. I understand that the updated files would replace older files.The four files listed in the article add up to only about 30MB (x64 SP1), yet the download is about 63MB.What accounts for the other 33MB? I normally do not look in detail at the "important" updates but this one caused my open partition space to shrink enough that "Defrag" is unhappy. I hadto temporarilyeliminate the page file to defrag.(As a rule, I have more free space, but Itemporarily installed several games that take up a lot of GB's)

Come on, if that''s all this update is ridiculous!

Anne You have the option of turning off automatic updates. Just change the settings to the"Check for updates but let me choose whether to download or install them" option. This will allow you to check the details of any update and make a decision on whether or not you want to install them. I have no idea what criteria Microsoft uses to decide whether or not to release an update. I would imagine that with hundreds of millions of users, worldwide, trying to keep everyone happy can be a daunting process. If this post helps to resolve your issue, click the Mark as Answer button at the top of this message.By marking a post as Answered, you help others find the answer faster. Ronnie Vernon Microsoft MVP Windows Desktop Experience