Windows Update

How do I opt-out of a windows critical update? Is there a way to do that? Microsoft marked it’s “Windows Genuine Advantage Validator” as a critical update, so it was automatically downloaded and prompted me to installed. The installer had a few steps, and halfway through, I stopped: why should I bother with this?

I know my version of windows is genuine, it came preinstalled from IBM. How will that make me more secure? Why am I wasting my time protecting Microsoft’s business interests?

So, I cancelled the installation, out of principle, but now I have a pending “critical update” all the time, and I can’t see a way to select “no, thanks”.

I’m spending more and more time in OSX. There are some things I prefer to use linux for, but I haven’t really been missing windows. It’s good to have a lot of tools at my disposal, regardless.