Time for another thrilling game of I Hope These Critical Security Updates Don’t Break Anything On My Computer with your permanent host, Microsoft.
This month’s edition includes approximately thirty-seven updates, with fixes for eighty-eight vulnerabilities, in Office, Defender, Edge, SharePoint, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and Windows.
The challenge of counting the number of updates and vulnerabilities each month isn’t getting any easier, as some Microsoft applications (especially Edge) now update themselves outside of the monthly cycle. The source of both information and confusion about Microsoft updates is the Security Update Guide.
Microsoft isn’t showing any signs of giving up their ultimate power over your PC, and will continue to install updates pretty much at their whim, for the foreseeable future. Those of us still running Windows versions that are unsupported (7, XP), and soon-to-be-unsupported (8.x) are starting to seem like the last holdouts in a battle that’s already lost. The battle for control over our own computers.
Or maybe that’s just hyperbole.
Regardless of the status of automatic updates on your version of Windows, at this time of the month it’s a good idea to head over to the Windows Control Panel (or Settings), find Windows Update, and check for new updates.