Microsoft Plans Largest-Ever Patch Tuesday

CWmike writes "Microsoft said it will deliver its largest-ever number of security updates on Tuesday to fix 13 flaws in every version of Windows, as well as Internet Explorer (IE), Office, SQL Server, important developer tools and Forefront Security client software. Among the updates will be the first for the final, or release to manufacturing, code of Windows 7, Microsoft's newest operating system. The 13 updates slated for next week, eight of them pegged 'critical,' beat the previous record of 12 updates shipped in February 2007 and again in October 2008." Update Reader Kurt Seifried writes to correct the math a bit, pointing to Microsoft's Advance Notification page for the release, which says that rather than 13 flaws, this Patch Tuesday involves "13 bulletins (eight critical and five important), addressing 34 vulnerabilities ... Most of these updates require a restart so please factor that into your deployment planning."

Comments

Re:Long Weekend

[Fluffeh]

How do people forget a password in three days?

Because people are stupid. A person is smart, but people are stupid.

One of the most strangely insightful comments in Men in Black from memory.

Re:The more crap you add...

[Penguinisto]

I'd like to see a comparison between the number of patches to Linux vs. Windows. :)

For just the kernel, or for a whole average distro? Which distro's kernel and which variant (e.g. SMP vs. uniprocessor) and which arch? (x86 vs. say, PPC or ARM)? Do we count all the optional modules, and what about the stuff that is out there which could be compiled-in, but usually isn't (e.g. Win4Lin extensions)? Are patches counted as individual diffs checked in to a CVS/SVN/BK repo source tree, or counted only if distributed .rpm/.apt packages by a vendor?

Otherwise, yeah, I can see your POV. :)

Re:Typical Bullshit

[smash]

I've yet to see a good Linux/Unix distribution that offers centralized patch management in an easily administered manner to compare with WSUS.

Kernel issues still require a reboot.

I run both Linux and FreeBSD in the server room, and have for about 15 years - but in terms of managing, reporting on, and distributing updates to hundreds of desktops, there's nothing off the shelf for *nix that comes close.