on my vista laptop I had several programs stop working when it automatically upgraded internet explorer to ie9, this changed the way vista did things and stopped the programs working as they were then no longer compatible. I had to roll back to IE8 and block the ie9 update and then they were fine again.
the alternative is to use a different browser, firefox or google chrome are ok, but then windows can be fussy and only download updates using iinternet explorer. dont try and unload internet explorer though as it is an essential part of the windows operating system.