Most of the issues in Oct. were fixed or mitigated by the time the November updates came out. I generally wait until just before the next set of updates are due out before installing the previous month's. It is important to patch but you do not need to be in the first 1000 to do so. Better to wait and see what problems others encounter before exposing yourself to the same. Making a disk image before updating has become standard operating procedure for me. You can't assume anymore that MS updates won't hose your computer. Best to let other people be the beta testers. I follow a couple of sites that regularly post patch problems and give an indication when it is ok to patch, but there are never any guarantees that all will go well all the time, so you need a backup plan to restore your computer to working condition if you depend on it - As most of us do to so we can bicker with each other on DR1.