In the regular dance we like to call the ‘Update Dance’, Microsoft and Adobe each released security updates on Tuesday for software installed on hundreds of millions of computers. Adobe issued an update for both Flash Player and Acrobat/Reader. Microsoft released four small updates to plug some 15 security holes in Windows and related software.
Microsoft’s update releases includes updates for Windows, Office and Microsoft Edge Browser (their replacement for Internet Explorer). Also notable is that January 2017 is the last month Microsoft plans to publish individual bulletins for each patch. From now on, some of the data points currently in the individual updates will be lumped into a “Security Updates Guide” published with each Patch Tuesday.
This change heralds a shift in the way Microsoft is deploying updates. Last year Microsoft stopped making individual security updates available for home users, giving those users instead a single monthly security rollup that includes all available security updates.
From now on, your updates are an ‘all or nothing’ approach.