This month’s Patch Tuesday arrives on June 11. Updates should become available from about 10am PST on that date.
The bulletins: there are five this month, including one for Internet Explorer that’s marked Critical. More technical details are available on the official announcement page.
Google has released version 27.0.1453.110 of its web browser, Chrome. The new version fixes several security issues.
Microsoft heard the complaints, and is bringing the Start button back in Windows 8.1. The problem? They heard, but they didn’t listen.
The Start button itself isn’t really all that useful. What’s useful about the Start button in previous versions of Windows is what happens when you click it: a menu appears. Of course, that menu has been criticized for years, but it’s still the only practical way to see a list of what’s possible on your computer.
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft has brought back the Start button, but pressing it just takes the user to the new Start screen (the one with the tiles). Useless. Apparently the Start screen has an “All apps” section that can be configured to look somewhat similar to a traditional menu, but this menu would be incomplete at best.
In public discussion on this subject, Microsoft spends a lot of time talking about branding, desktop wallpaper on the Start screen, and the ability to boot to the desktop. They also apparently realized that on a computer with no menu, searching is the only way to find anything, so search has been ‘improved’ to Windows 7 functionality.
On the positive side, it will once again be possible to have more than one program or window visible on the screen simultaneously, although that feature will also be limited.
Here’s a roundup of related articles from around the web:
Update 2012Jun03: Peter Bright over at Ars Technica also noticed that the Start menu won’t be back in Windows 8.1, although I disagree with his conclusions.
Google has pushed out a new version of Chrome that fixes a graphics-related bug.
The latest version of Google’s web browser includes several security and other bug fixes, better spell checking, improved search predictions, improved web page loading times and the latest Adobe Flash for Chrome (11.7.700.203).
After much speculation, Microsoft has finally announced a name for the next version of Windows: Windows 8.1. Up until now, the working name for the new version was Windows Blue.
Anyone currently using Windows 8 will be able to install the new version as an update for free. This sounds a lot like what Microsoft used to call a Service Pack. Well, whatever they want to call it, as long as it’s free, I’m all for it.
The new version is expected to bring back some aspects of the Start button, the Start menu and the traditional desktop, but the details remain unclear.
Another new version of Firefox was released today. Version 21.0 fixes several security vulnerabilities and other bugs.
As usual, the release notes for version 21 don’t mention the version except in a note about contributors, but the list of fixes seems to be relevant to the new version.
Clicking the ‘complete list of changes‘ link on the release notes page now goes to the Firefox bug tracking site, but the list of bugs shown includes issues that were resolved long before version 21 appeared, which is still very confusing.
On a brighter note, the release notes page now includes this entry:
21.0: Security fixes can be found here
Clicking the associated link shows a page titled “Known Vulnerabilities”, which clearly shows the version in which particular security vulnerabilities were fixed.
Updates for Adobe’s PDF Reader product line were issued today. The updates fix vulnerabilities that could cause instability or allow unwanted remote access on affected computers. The updates bring Reader up to version 11.0.03.
Adobe just announced an update for Flash, version 11.7.700.202. As usual, the update fixes vulnerabilities in Flash that could cause instability or allow remote control of affected computers.
Microsoft, which maintains Flash separately for Internet Explorer 10, released an update for that browser with the latest fixes. The patch is available from Windows Update.
Likewise for Google, which released a corresponding patch for its Chrome browser. Chrome will update itself automatically.
The month’s updates include fixes for vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, .NET and Office. The main bulletin has all the technical details, and the Microsoft Security Response Center has a more reader-friendly summary, entitled “Microsoft Customer Protections for May 2013”.
The expected patch for recently-discovered vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 8 is included in this month’s patches as MS13-038. According to Microsoft, you can install this patch whether or not you previously installed the emergency “Fix-It” released by Microsoft.
boot13