Imagine a world in which there were no software updates; no security vulnerabilities; no bugs at all. The idea of such a place makes me happy. This utopia is destined to remain a fantasy, sadly. All software has bugs, and that will never change.

Inspection of Microsoft’s Security Update Guide (SUG) as of 10am today shows the usual massive list of updates, only some of which will affect most of us. You can wade into that if you have some time and access to painkillers, or you can download the list and open it in Excel, which is a lot easier to work with, and is what I do.

Analysis of the update data shows that there are fifty updates this month. Sixteen of those updates are flagged as Critical. A total of sixty-seven vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, and Edge are addressed.

As usual, the announcement of this month’s updates does little more than tell us what we already knew: that there are updates today, and where to find them.

Time to patch those computers!

Update 2017Oct11: The Register points out that while vulnerabilities affecting Windows 10 are being patched by Microsoft as soon as they are identified, Windows 7 and 8 systems don’t get those updates until the next Patch Tuesday. This creates an opportunity for malicious persons to analyze the Windows 10 updates and create exploits that work on Windows 7 and 8.