Patch Tuesday Bringing Critical Windows 8 and RT Updates

Patch Tuesday is a long standing tradition for Microsoft. For those that aren’t in the know, this is basically a series of patches that happen once a month on a Tuesday and affect multiple Microsoft products.

Now it seems that the first Patch Tuesday of 2013 is bringing with it a critical update for Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Microsoft released an advanced notification of its upcoming security bulletins today, which offers up what we can expect from Patch Tuesday. From the sounds of it, Microsoft will have a total of seven updates, five of which are “important” and two are labeled “critical”.

The seven updates are to address 12 shoftware issues in total, with various Microsoft Software products. Four of the important fixes are for Windows 8, three are for Windows RT, and just one of the two critical updates are for Windows RT and Windows 8.

Specifics for these patches are not released, which isn’t surprising. Microsoft always keeps this kind of detailed information scarce until right when they release the updates, in order to prevent hackers from taking unfair advantage of the information or adding protection against the fixes.

So what do you need to do? As long as your Windows Updates are turned on automatically, sit back and relax. Windows has gotten to the point where it can pretty much take care of itself without the constant guiding hand it needed back in the Windows 9x and XP days.

Of course there are reasons why some of us avoid automatic updates. One reason might be a laggy Internet connection or perhaps a net service that is based on mobile broadband and has a data cap.

If you are unsure if you have your settings turned on, check out the notifications panel in Windows and double-check.

[ source ]