Clean install of Windows 7 - what updates are needed?

My HP Pavilion Elite 110F had so many issues that I decided to do a clean install of Windows 7 so I could move forward and only download programs that I need currently.

The clean install went fabulously, however, now I have 135 Important Updates and 57 Optional updates. There are 20+ Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 R2 SP1 for X64 systems updates, 50+ security updates, and 15 or so various other updates Windows 7 updates. These don't include all the other "important" updates.

It seems that I would be back in the same boat with all these various updates for each category as previously my Programs list was full of all kinds of different Microsoft versions of updates that were never removed with the Cleanup Utility. Isn't there a current not-bloating list of updates that I install? How can I locate the cleanest list of most recent updates that will keep my system running?

I'm not aware of a "non-bloating list of updates" and would be suspicious of any such list I might find.

Your HP had many issues.

Do you have any particular reason to think that Windows Update was the source of any of those issues?

Windows Update isn't perfect, but in my experience it's not a leading suspect on a PC with "issues".

I'd think about doing them in batches, first concentrating on those rated critical and most likely taking all of that class, in batches.

Then move on to those rated important, again in batches. Probably taking them all, in batches.

The optional ones I'd evaluate one by one, accepting any that appeared to apply and possibly rejecting the others. I wouldn't necessarily accept an optional update for something that was working well or that applied to some functionality I never used.

I'd guess your prior issues have other causes unless you have specific reason to believe to the contrary. I don't know what your habits are regarding PC maintenance and don't know if you have any hardware issues.

I install all Windows Updates and don't see a problem with that, I want them...
The issues you had were probably caused by other programs and things you installed ...

Create a Backup Image now, before installing the updates.
Then if you do have problems, you can restore the backup image quicker and easier than a clean reinstall.

Create a backup image before doing anything you might want to "undo".

When you have everything updated, working correctly, etc. create a Backup image and delete the previous image(s) that won't be needed later.