Index: wp-admin/import/wp-cat2tag.php
===================================================================
--- wp-admin/import/wp-cat2tag.php	(revision 7826)
+++ wp-admin/import/wp-cat2tag.php	(working copy)
@@ -177,14 +177,14 @@
 					}
 
 					// Change the category to a tag.
-					$wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare("UPDATE $wpdb->term_taxonomy SET taxonomy = 'post_tag' WHERE term_id = %d AND taxonomy = 'category'", $category->term_id) );
+					$wpdb->update($wpdb->term_taxonomy, array('taxonomy' => 'post_tag'), array('term_id' => $category->term_id, 'taxonomy' => 'category') );
 
 					$terms = $wpdb->get_col( $wpdb->prepare("SELECT term_id FROM $wpdb->term_taxonomy WHERE parent = %d AND taxonomy = 'category'", $category->term_id) );
 					foreach ( (array) $terms as $term )
 						clean_category_cache($term);
 
 					// Set all parents to 0 (root-level) if their parent was the converted tag
-					$wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare("UPDATE $wpdb->term_taxonomy SET parent = 0 WHERE parent = %d AND taxonomy = 'category'", $category->term_id) );
+					$wpdb->update($wpdb->term_taxonomy, array('parent' => '0'), array('parent' => $category->term_id, 'taxonomy' => 'category') );
 				}
 				// Clean the cache
 				clean_category_cache($category->term_id);
Index: wp-admin/includes/template.php
===================================================================
--- wp-admin/includes/template.php	(revision 7826)
+++ wp-admin/includes/template.php	(working copy)
@@ -504,7 +504,7 @@
 		// catch and repair bad pages
 		if ( $page->post_parent == $page->ID ) {
 			$page->post_parent = 0;
-			$wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare("UPDATE $wpdb->posts SET post_parent = '0' WHERE ID = %d", $page->ID) );
+			$wpdb->update($wpdb->posts, array('post_parent' => '0'), array('ID' => $page->ID) );
 			clean_page_cache( $page->ID );
 		}
 
Index: wp-admin/update-links.php
===================================================================
--- wp-admin/update-links.php	(revision 7826)
+++ wp-admin/update-links.php	(working copy)
@@ -36,9 +36,10 @@
 	$returns = explode("\n", $body);
 
 	foreach ($returns as $return) :
-		$time = substr($return, 0, 19);
-		$uri = preg_replace('/(.*?) | (.*?)/', '$2', $return);
-		$wpdb->query( $wpdb->prepare("UPDATE $wpdb->links SET link_updated = %s WHERE link_url = %s", $time, $uri) );
+		$link_updated = substr($return, 0, 19);
+		$link_url = preg_replace('/(.*?) | (.*?)/', '$2', $return);
+
+		$wpdb->update( $wpdb->links, compact('link_updated'), compact('link_url') );
 	endforeach;
 }
 ?>