Massive Patch Tuesday for Microsoft

This Tuesday, February 12, Microsoft released 11 patches that address 17 security vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities include problems in Microsoft Office, in IE, and two new denial of service (DoS) attacks. As a result, this particular "Patch Tuesday" (the term used to describe the second Tuesday every month when Microsoft releases security fixes in one bundle) has been the biggest in a period of one year.

Microsoft also tends to use "Patch Tuesday" to release other updates designated as "non-security, high-priority". IE7, for example, was sent to users on a Patch Tuesday. This time round, it is two updates that prepare Vista computers for the Vista Service Pack 1. That is, a Vista computer needs to have these installed before SP1 can be installed (later, in March). Actually, a total of three updates is required before one can install SP1 on Vista. However, Microsoft has already sent one out via the Windows Update last month.

The patches have been marked "Important", and install automatically if a user has Windows Update set to the recommended configuration; reads a post on the Windows Vista team Blog. The first of the patches is an update to Vista's "servicing stack", while the second is a "multi-component update", according to the Blog post authored by Nick White, a product manager for the Vista team. Some users already know this: when Microsoft first put up Vista SP1 for download (the Release Candidate, or RC, in December 2007), it informed users that there would be three prerequisites.
Meanwhile, some users are still confused:
the idea of having to update a Vista installation before one can update it later with SP1 doesn't seem to make perfect sense. Besides, couldn't the updates have been included in the final SP1 release? Talking of which, there happen to be driver incompatibilities, due to which some machines might not work right now after applying the update. Microsoft is hoping to address these issues by mid-March, and only then will SP1 be available on Windows Update. For the record, many of those who have already tested SP1 for Vista are complaining about slowdowns, and no real improvements.
Isnt that great news.