Outlook 2002 problems/slow shutdown after update

I have XP media center edition with Outlook 2002 and NIS 2005. After
installing the latest critical updates I could no longer send/receive e-mail
for my Yahoo account but hotmail worked fine. Also shutdown took about a
minute. I restored to a date before the updates and everything worked fine
except I had to re-validate NIS for some reason. After downloading the
updates had same problem again.
Does anyone know how to fix these issues and keep updates? Given the fact
hotmail works and yahoo doesn't is this some type of ploy by microsoft to
harm yahoo? I triple checked all of my e-mail settings, ports etc. and they
are all correct. I can only blame microsoft and their "critical" updates at
this point. Someone please help a brother out. Thanks.