Windows Patch to be Relesed Today

[thecoalman]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/10/microsoft_to_issue_emergency_s_1....l?nav=rss_blog

Microsoft said late Wednesday that it plans to break out of its monthly patch cycle to issue a security update today for a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows.

Redmond rarely releases security patches outside of Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of each month. The software giant isn't providing many details yet, but the few times it has departed from its Patch Tuesday cycle it has always done so to stop the bleeding on a serious security hole that criminals were using to break into Windows PCs on a large scale.


.........Microsoft is expected to release the update around 4:00 p.m. ET..........

[yoda313]

Does that include vista?

Also i still haven't updated my xp pc to sp3. Should I do that right away? I have the update session on the computer I just haven't installed it yet. I did backup the pc the other day so I should be protected that way.....

[Relayerman]

I've upgraded 2 XP machines to SP3 and both went fine with no ill effects. If you've kept your XP updated on a regular basis then the SP3 upgrade won't be that big a deal. Most of it is security related and some fewer bug fixes. Depending on what security patches have already been applied will determine just how big the SP3 upgrade will be.

[thecoalman]

Patch applies to all windows versions yoda including vista.

[jman98]

SP3 on XP should be OK. I have used it and it seemed pretty benign. Most of the problems were with some AMD CPU PCs sold by HP where HP did not follow Microsoft's directions for making their installed OS images and this led to the endless reboot cycle. If you search, you can find tools that will test if you could be affected by this. Unfortunately some people who don't have HP PCs and/or don't have AMD CPUs still have had serious problems with SP3, but I would regard problems to be unlikely. I'm petty skeptical about Microsoft service packs, but this one seems OK.

[yoda313]

@jman98 - I do have an hp amd cpu - however I upgraded it to a x2 dual core and it runs vista so this would not effect it that way.

@coalman - thanks - I guess I'll have it this afternoon probably.

@everyone else - yeah I think I have been updated regularly so I guess I will get around to finalizing the sp3 update then.

[aedipuss]

wow, looks like people are actually installing this critical patch. the ms update site has been timing out/slower than molasses for the last half hour.

[SCDVD]

It's refreshing to see the sensibility in this post so far. We haven't had any knuckle dragging fools sounding off about how bad updates are.