Patch Tuesday for September 2021

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes.

Summer is winding down, young folks are risking their health going back to school, and anti-vaccination cretins are revealing to the world how incredibly stupid they are by protesting at hospitals.

The good news is that you can easily distract yourself from the bad news for a few minutes by doing something straightforward and comfortable. I’m referring, of course, to installing Microsoft updates on your Windows computers.

If you’re looking for detailed information about the updates being made available by Microsoft today, the best place to start is the official source: the Security Update Guide (SUG). I’m not saying you’ll find it easy to navigate (you likely won’t). But it is the official source.

For those of you not inclined to risk a migraine by looking at the SUG, I’ve done my usual analysis of this month’s offerings, based on data downloaded from the SUG and viewed in a spreadsheet application (any one will do).

This month’s patches address a total of ninety-three security vulnerabilities, in Office, Edge, SharePoint, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Windows Server, Windows 10, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1.

The Windows 7 patches are not available to regular folks, and can only be obtained (legally) by paying Microsoft a large amount of money. Windows 7 users are encouraged to upgrade to, well, I guess Windows 10, which is currently somewhat less terrible than it was when it was released.

Windows 8.1 users — the few of us who remain — have the luxury of deciding whether and when to install updates via Windows Update.

Windows 10 users can only delay updates, and then only if you’re running the Pro (not Home) version.

About jrivett

Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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