It is my experience that the risks are exponentially higher the further you get from the "flagship" product. This is also true for Firefox - if you don't updat

It is my experience that the risks are exponentially higher the further you get from the "flagship" product. This is also true for Firefox - if you don't update as updates become available you will soon find yourself with something bad on your machine if you're not careful (and on Windows). Plus, while Windows 7 built-in protection isn't great (which, if they went past IE6 they should upgrade the OS too), it does prevent some massive system-wide changes and rootkits.