OK, I figured out what was wrong.
I was simply selecting patches that were all coincidentally throwing a warning
"This file was saved with a newer version of _____, Please update your software"
And I was ignoring the warning because it didn't elaborate with something like
"it ain't gonna play diddly til you do" I'm actually downloading all the updates and was testing stuff while thatw as happening. Maybe that will solve all the confusion.
It seems hard to understand how I could load everything from a boxed set of discs this morning, and before updating anything, find out that the patches that come in the box were made with even newer software than comes in the box. It seems like the patches would be concurrent with the various app engines that came in the box. Guess not.