I finished an N-Lited install on my machine a while ago and excluded IE from the install completely. Windows Updates won't run without Internet Explorer, so I've been trying out WindizUpdate in Firefox and, so far, have been satisfied (and impressed) with the alternative.
Couldn't find mention of it in the forums, so I thought I'd pass it along for anyone else wanting to slim their system.
http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/