Microsoft tweaks Patch Tuesday advance notification
Microsoft is changing the way it documents its monthly security patches.
Starting next month, the software giant will add a few more details to its Advanced Notification Alerts in order to give customers a better idea of whether they'll be rushing out software patches to their users.
Microsoft publishes these alerts five days before the security updates come out each month in order to let customers know which applications they may have to patch. The software updates themselves, and the documentation that accompanies them (called security bulletins) are released on the second Tuesday of every month, a day known as Patch Tuesday to system administrators.
Previously the Advanced Notification alerts contained only vague details on the updates -- that Microsoft would be patching at least one critical Office bug, for example -- but that is now changing, according to Microsoft Security Program Manager Mark Griesi.
