I have my Win XP computer set to automatically notify me of updates.

On a number of occasions in the past 3 months or so, including earlier this
week, the updates have add Internet Explorer to my boot sequence, causing it
to load when I boot into Windows. I do not want this.

How can I:
1. remove the existing instances of IE from my boot sequence; and
2. ensure that this does not happen again?

Thank you.