It’s another Patch Day, and this month from Microsoft we’ve got thirty-two update bulletins and associated patches. Twenty-one of the bulletins are flagged as having Critical severity. One hundred and twenty-four security vulnerabilities are addressed, affecting Internet Explorer 9 and 11, Adobe Flash embedded in Microsoft browsers, Office applications, Edge (both the original version and the new version based on the Chromium engine), Sharepoint, Visual Studio, Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, and Windows Defender, the anti-malware program included with Windows 10.

You can find all the relevant details by perusing Microsoft’s Security Update Guide.

Although Microsoft produced Windows 7 updates this month, you won’t be able to obtain them through Windows Update unless you’ve subscribed to Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. Still, you should check Windows Update because occasionally Microsoft makes new Windows 7 updates available to everyone.

Windows 8.1 is still getting updates, and that will continue until January 10, 2023. Windows Update is still the easiest way to check for and install updates for Windows 8.1.

As usual, Windows 10 computers will be force-fed these updates over the next few days. You can delay the inevitable for as much as a year for feature updates (changes other than bug fixes), or a month for bug fixes, but eventually they’ll be installed whether you want them or not. Which still seems crazy, given how many problems Windows 10 updates have caused.

Happy Patch Tuesday! Today’s gifts from the always-generous folks at Microsoft include forty-two updates, addressing one hundred and fifteen security bugs in Internet Explorer (9 and 11), Edge (the original version, not the one built on Chromium), Office (2010, 2016, and 2019), Windows (7, 8.1, and 10), and Windows Server.

You can dig into all the gory details over at the Microsoft Security Update Guide.

Computers running Windows 10 will update themselves at Microsoft’s whim over the coming days.

Windows 8.1 users can still exercise some freedom of choice in deciding when to install updates, but I encourage everyone to install them as soon as possible. Even with Microsoft’s recent bungling, you’re arguably better off with security fixes than without, even if those updates sometimes cause other problems.

To install updates on your Windows 8.1 computer, go to the Windows Control Panel and open Windows Update.

If you’re running Windows 7, you may be surprised to note that some of this month’s updates are available for that no-longer-officially-supported version. That’s because while those updates definitely exist, they’re not technically available to the general public.

To get access to the Windows 7 updates, you need to sign up for Extended Security Updates for Windows 7. This is typically only done by Enterprise users (businesses and educational institutions) who need more time to migrate computers to newer versions of Windows. For regular folks, the cost of ESU seems likely to be prohibitive.

The more adventurous among you might want to experiment with hacks to get around this limitation for Windows 7 updates. Apparently people are finding some success doing this.

The first Patch Tuesday for 2020 arrives with the long-planned but still inconvenient end of meaningful support for Windows 7.

The venerable Windows 7 still runs on about a quarter of all PCs worldwide. Sticking with Windows 7 was — and continues to be — a conscious decision for many users, made because Windows 8 and 10 were problematic for a variety of reasons.

Microsoft killed support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014, but still released updates for that O/S on a couple of occasions when a security vulnerability was so severe that it seemed likely to cause massive problems if unpatched. Microsoft will probably do the same thing for Windows 7, but it’s not a good idea to rely on the goodwill of any large corporation.

So, if you’re running Windows 7, what should you do? You can upgrade to Windows 8.1, which will buy you some time, until its support ends on January 10, 2023. Or you can stop resisting and make the move to Windows 10. Many of the initial problems with — and objections to — Windows 10 have now been addressed, making it somewhat less unpalatable. Microsoft offers additional guidance on the Windows 7 support ended on January 14, 2020 page on the Microsoft support site.

Another sensible option would be to switch to Linux. There are now Linux distributions that feel a lot like Windows, which can ease the transition. The main problem is software. But even if the software you use has no Linux version, you can still run an older version of Windows in a virtual machine on your Linux computer. That’s not too helpful for high-end games, however.

Back to our regularly scheduled updates…

There are thirty-nine updates (and associated bulletins) from Microsoft this month, addressing fifty vulnerabilities in Windows, .NET, Internet Explorer, and Office. Eight of the updates are flagged with Critical severity.

Although there are other ways to obtain the updates, by far the simplest method is to use Windows Update, which is found in the Windows 10 settings, or the Control Panel in older versions.

Update 2020Jan15: One of the vulnerabilities addressed in yesterday’s updates was reported to Microsoft by the NSA. While there’s disagreement about the seriousness of the vulnerability, this is notable in that the NSA previously wasn’t interested in sharing its discovered vulnerabilities. Lack of NSA cooperation led to the WannaCry ransomware nightmare in 2017. Brian Krebs has more.

While it’s generally a good idea to cross your fingers and install all available Microsoft updates, or at least allow them to be installed automatically, some Windows 10 users have grown wary of updates, and configured Windows Updates to be delayed. The actual risk from this vulnerability is mostly for Windows Server 2016 computers that are exposed to the Internet, and Windows 10 computers normally used by people with administrator permissions.

Update 2020Jan17: There’s more useful information about the NSA-reported vulnerability from Ars Technica, and SANS. SANS has created a web page and download that you can use to test your computers for this vulnerability.

Microsoft’s Security Update Guide provides the raw material for understanding each month’s pile of patches, but it’s not exactly easy to use in its current form. I use the almost-hidden Download link to the far right of the Security Updates heading about halfway down the page. The downloaded file is an Excel spreadsheet, which I find much easier to navigate that the SUG site. Your mileage may vary.

This month, Microsoft has issued sixty-seven updates and associated bulletins. The updates address seventy-eight vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Edge, Office, Office Services and Web Apps, Azure DevOps, Open Source Software, .NET Framework, Azure, SQL Server, ASP.NET, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Exchange Server.

The vulnerabilities range from Moderate to Critical in severity, and they can lead to one or more of the usual horrors, including Denial of Service, Elevation of Privilege, Remote Code Execution, Information Disclosure, Spoofing, and Security Feature Bypass. Brrrrr.

Release Notes for July 2019 Security Updates

By far the easiest way to install all these updates is to let Windows Update do the work. Of course to some extent that means trusting Microsoft not to hose your computer, so there’s that. My current thinking is that I’m willing to trust Microsoft to do this, as long as they at least give me a way to roll back any faulty updates.

Adobe released some security updates to coincide with Microsoft’s patch cycle, but none for the ubiquitous Flash Player or Acrobat Reader.