Today, Microsoft published twenty-four updates, addressing thirty-three vulnerabilities in Flash player (for Microsoft browsers), Office, Internet Explorer, Edge, and Windows.

As usual, Microsoft’s announcement is little more than a pointer to the Security Update Guide (SUG). If you’re looking for details about any of these updates, that’s your only official option. The SUG’s user interface is somewhat headache-inducing, but there’s useful information to be had there.

Windows 10 gets these updates whether you want them or not; Windows 7 and 8.1 can be configured for automatic or manual updates. I personally don’t like the idea of updates being installed on my computers at Microsoft’s whim, so I’m sticking with manual updates. And avoiding Windows 10 completely. And gradually switching to Linux.

According to Microsoft’s announcement, the November updates include patches for Internet Explorer, Edge, Windows, Office, and .NET. As usual, you have to dig into the rather awkward Security Update Guide to find additional details.

My analysis of the SUG reveals that there are fifty-three bulletins, addressing fifty-four vulnerabilities across the usual range of products. Sixteen of the vulnerabilities are flagged Critical.

If you’re interested in performing your own analysis, I strongly suggest avoiding the cumbersome SUG interface. Instead, locate the almost hidden ‘Download’ link at the top right of the updates grid and click that to open the data in Excel. From there you can use Excel’s filtering tools to wrestle the update information into more manageable lists.

Well, I was right. The announcement for May’s Patch Tuesday has almost exactly the same wording as last month’s. That’s because neither contains any useful information. No, it’s back to the new Security Update Guide, at least if you want to know what Microsoft wants to do to your computer this month.

According to my analysis of this month’s update information in the SUG, there are fifty distinct bulletins, affecting Flash, Internet Explorer, Edge, .NET, Office, and Windows. A total of fifty-six vulnerabilities are addressed. Fifteen of the vulnerabilities are categorized as Critical.

Today Microsoft also issued three advisories:

• Microsoft Security Advisory 4022345: Identifying and correcting failure of Windows Update client to receive updates
• Microsoft Security Advisory 4021279: Vulnerabilities in .NET Core, ASP.NET Core Could Allow Elevation of Privilege
• Microsoft Security Advisory 4010323: Deprecation of SHA-1 for SSL/TLS Certificates in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11