This weekend I did something that I have never done before in my life. I installed a number of critical fixes, patches and updates to the trusty old PC at home.

Yep, despite all the warnings not to try it without a safety net and an ambulance standing by, I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 all by myself.

We are not big on the technical side of computers at home. If you think of our house as the kingdom of the blind, I?ve got one eye, but it?s got sand in it and it?s a bit bloodshot because I was up rather late. However, I did the patching out of necessity because many problems had been developing.

As an example of the difficulties we faced, when connected to the internet we were uploading far more than we were downloading. On a dial-up connection this made every browsing experience comparable to watching a web cam at the sloth enclosure on a slow-motion setting.

Also, we were receiving regular messages from some very friendly ladies with eastern European names who just happened to be online at the same time as us and had some photos we might want to look at. And our network connections had three rogue diallers installed - from where, no one knew. What we did know was this: something had to be done to improve matters.

The installation of the Microsoft service pack was simple enough. I backed everything up, stuck the disk in and sat back and waited.

There were a few options to consider, nothing too outlandish, but I suspect that complete computer novices would be far more likely just to forget about the process, and cross their fingers and hope that for some inexplicable reason, hackers, crackers, and Nigerian financial backers would leave them alone. This, of course, is unlikely.

Since installing the service pack, whenever I open up an application it usually tells me that something has not been found. The internet would not connect until I convinced the system that, rather than Windows XP, it was actually running Windows 98 - which it obviously wasn?t. The messenger has gone the way of all things and a number of items on the desktop now promise much and deliver little.

With some tinkering, patience, and a large amount of scotch tape I eventually managed to solve most of the problems, and thanks to the latter was not able to hurl the PC out of the window.

So far as I know the PC is running almost as well as it ever did. Plus pop-up adverts have pushed off, we are less likely to be victims of junk mail and spoofers, and all sorts of neat little tricks are now present to prevent online bandits from getting the better of us again.

But what occurs to me is that this is an awkward method of updating and ensuring the safety and security of a PC.

If cars routinely went wrong as often as computer systems, and drivers had to send off for and apply fixes themselves, then we would all be driving around in vehicles with doors that don?t properly close, and with airbags held in place with a mixture of chewing gum and positive thinking.

When it comes to home PCs and internet connections, I?m not sure that it?s wise to ask members of the public to install updates in this way themselves. In fact, I think it?s clear that this frontline stuff is not suited to the skills of the general user.

Some procedures, especially those that are new or not routine, can pose terrible problems for people inexperienced in the black arts of getting computers to do what you want them to before you turn into a gibbering wreck.

Until the patching process is made much easier, users will continue to experience difficulties and frustration - and one day software companies such as Microsoft may feel the backlash.