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.