A Frustrating Journey
Everyone got into the patch game recently. Microsoft patch Tuesday sent a half dozen or more patches to PCs. Windows 2011 got some care with a a rollup patch. Then my web server had updates for evey major component. Naturally, it's this site, down last, but where the problems began. Read the rest »
While there were patches waiting when we all first got our Microsoft Surface RT, today was the first “Patch Tuesday” since it’s release, and it was invited to the party. It brought a firmware update and 7 other patches, although one of those was a Windows Defender definition update and probably shouldn’t count. Some bloggers and others were reporting a performance improvement. Personally, it seemed the same for me. My slowest app (MetroTwit) is still frustratingly slow but now crashes much faster. I don’t blame the patch for this as MetroTwit was [...] Read the rest »
Microsoft released nine security updates this past Tuesday. When it came time to run Automatic Update on my Windows XP SP2 virtual machine (running under Parallels) I got 12 updates, so Microsoft pushed more than the security updates. The updates broke down as follows (all links are to the Microsoft Knowledge Base article number listed): Security Update for Media Player 11 (KB936782) Security Update for IE 7 on Windows XP (KB938127) Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (KB928365) Cumulative Security Update for IE7 on Windows XP (KB937143) Security Update [...] Read the rest »
There’s a couple of updates to last Tuesday’s Microsoft patches that are worth mentioning. First, Microsoft updated MS07-036 to include Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac as a vulnerable application. So if you run Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac you’ll need to patch it. I don’t run the software so can’t say how the patch works. The vulnerability is rated as “Important” for Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. Also, Slashdot has a posting about people experiencing problems with the .NET updates from last Tuesday. This was bulletin MS07-040. Most problems are [...] Read the rest »
Apple joins the the Tuesday patch party and releases updates to Quicktime and iTunes. The patches are for the software on both Windows and OS X. The Quicktime update, to version 7.2 includes eight security vulnerability fixes in addition to updates to the H.264 codec, support for full screen viewing and “numerous bug fixes”. As with all other Quicktime updates if you’ve purchased a Quicktime Pro version prior to 7 and you install this update your older Quicktime Pro will stop working and you’ll have to buy the new version. [...] Read the rest »
It’s the second Tuesday of July and that means patches from Microsoft. This month brings six patches, three rated critical, two important, and one moderate. Only five patches are for desktop software and Windows Vista also gets its own unique patch although it’s the one rated moderate. Of these, only the .NET patches and the Vista patch were needed on my PCs. In addition to these security updates I also received a update (through automatic update) related to Intel processors. This was called a “microcode reliability update”. My test PCs [...] Read the rest »
Apple has released a security-only update for the sixth straight month this year. It’s the appropriately named Security Update 2007-006.This update is needed for 10.4.9 along with the just released 10.4.10. It’s also needed for 10.3.9. Two security vulnerabilities are addressed. One is in Webcore and can allow cross-site scripting attacks. The second patched vulnerability was in Webkit and could allow remote code execution. I applied the update to an Intel iMac and an Intel Mac Mini without a problem. You can visit my hardware page for the specific hardware [...] Read the rest »
Microsoft released six security patches today. Four of them were rated critical, one important and one moderate. There are patches for all supported desktop OS platforms, Internet Explorer, a couple mail apps and for a couple versions of Visio. There aren’t any Office patches. The critical desktop patches are: MS07-031 for Windows XP SP2, Windows XP x64 and Windows XP x64 SP2. It’s rated as “important” for Windows 2000 SP4. Earlier versions of Windows 2000 and XP may be affected but aren’t supported by Microsoft. On Windows XP this vulnerability [...] Read the rest »
Apple has released updates for both Quicktime and iTunes. The updates are for the software on both Windows and OS X. The Quicktime patch is a security update that patches two vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities allow a malicious website to either run code on a computer or get infomation from a computer. Apple also released an update to iTunes that adds support for DRM free music. It looks like Apple might just make their promise of DRM-free music available in iTunes by the end of May. The updates will be pushed [...] Read the rest »
In keeping with it’s “one-a-month” trend for then year so far, Apple has released Security Update 2007-05. According to the Apple notification it contains updates to the following components: bind CarbonCore CoreGraphics crontabs fetchmail file iChat mDNSResponder PPP ruby screen texinfo VPN I applied the Universal version of the update to my iMac through software update without a problem. The update does require a reboot and on my iMac it did a bit of a double reboot. During the first reboot, which took longer than usual, another reboot was done. [...] Read the rest »