If the auto was turned off then it might have asked if you wanted to update. re : ''auto updated both my wife's and my programs.'' So are you talking about two computers? What OS are you using? re : ''How do I get our programs back the way they were?'' Well, I'm not a mind reader nor have I ever seen your computer, so you would need to say what version of Thunderbird you were using before the update. re :''Neither of us want the changes.'' What changes are you refering to ? Without knowing what you had in the first place, it is hard to know what you are talking about. Perhaps you were using a very old version, which is ill advised as it will not have up to date security and bug fixes. I'm running the latest version and it has not changed much in the UI for ages, but there has been various security updates and bug fixes. If you can tell me what the problem is then it may be easy to change a couple of settings to get it to appear more familiar.