Windows Media Player 11 just broke my Internets

...wow, not the best time to be me where Microsoft stuff is concerned.

First I obtain a PC that can't decide whether its Jimmy McBlagpants or not, then this happens:

My main desktop machine just got hold of the WMP11 / IE7 install through automatic updates, and as soon as they went in and that stupid WGA thing ran, all Hell broke loose. First the desktop crashed, then it flickered for a bit, then came back to life with a vaguely disconcerting grunt or two. Then my CD Tray started making blaaaargh, the pain style noises before dying a death. A few reboots later, and it was completely knackered. Not only could I get the tray open, I kept seeing messages telling me "Your Media device is not working. Please contact your manufacturer".

Yeah, thanks for that Microsoft. Awesome job you just did TRASHING MY PC.

Things got worse and worse until the whole system basically keeled over and died. I've no idea why, but thankfully good old System Restore got me up and running again.

Now, at the risk of sounding slightly paranoid, it occurs to me that this is the first time I've had to do an update (I think) where I was prompted to run the WGA tool on my main desktop PC. Is the WGA thing really so screwed up and has nothing better to do than go around randomly trashing perfectly legit desktops?

Possible, though I've no way of knowing for sure.

Either way - I'll be avoiding the WMP11 and IE7 update like the plague. Nice one, Microsoft!