Windows 2000 SP4 (SERVICE.EXE)

Guys:

I have a situation I want to isolate somehow.  We all know the issues with this
service pack.  When I installed it, I did not checked that I wanted to be able
to uninstall this in the future, so you know the story... Specifically, file
SERVICE.EXE was active and taking the overall system performance.  I struggled
with it, trying to accept the reality but at the end, I decided to initialize my
machine; I was in good shape due to a good backup I had.

My question is: how can I upgrade my PC with all it needs but not the SP4?  If I
go to the windows update page
(http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp), it will force me to get
SP4 as part of my critical patches.

What is your advice here?

Peter Vidal
Pall Aeropower Corp.
SR Programmer Analyst
WWW.Pall.com

"A good player makes himself look good; a great player makes the team look
good."
Author unknown