How can you read a minidump file?

I've found a few threads about this. Is there any fairly easy way to be able to read a minidump file? I found a very good tutorial from a couple of years ago, I am wondering if there is some up to date info. And do you have to remove the checkmark from the automatic restart? I can't even remember how to recover from a BSOD, haven't seen one for a few years (nor do I miss the darned things in the slightest! )

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35246

I've been having niggly little errors and reboots with my PC since Aug 26. It doesn't happen every day and I can't seem to pin it on one specific program so it's pretty hard to figure out what the culprit might be.

Aug 26: Spontaneous reboot while reading an e-mail in OE6.

Aug 27: rebooted during a power outage, although computer is connected to a backup battery, so it shouldn't have rebooted. The backup battery was working correctly.

Aug 27: Firefox would not open at all. No error message displayed, it simply wouldn't start. (This will happen once in a while, but very seldom. Hadn't happened for months, as far as I can remember.) Had to restart the computer, and then Firefox worked correctly from there.

Aug 28: Program update of AVG free 8 installed.

Aug 31: Installed MS Windows update KB950974, which is a security update for System Event.

Sept 2: OE would crash every time it tried to connect to my e-mail server. Error message mentioned inetcom.dll. I restarted the computer, worked fine from there.

Sept 4: Computer frozen, completely unresponsive. Ctrl/Alt/Del did not work. Firefox was being used, photo editing was being done from within photobucket. Gimp was also open. Had to hard boot, then things were fine.

Sept 7: Computer spontaneously rebooted when awakened from a standby state.

I am wondering if it's the Windows Update KB950974.

Using Windows XP Media Center Edition, SP2.

I've got a few more Windows updates that need to be installed, but I generally don't do updates unless the system has been stable for 2 or 3 days in succession. I thought I was in the clear until this morning. I'm considering uninstalling the most recent update to see what happens. (My XP Pro laptop didn't seem to like that one much either, still giving it my 2 to 3 day rule to calm down before I install the next update on it.)