back to article Three critical fixes star in Patch Tuesday update

Three of the seven patches Microsoft released on Tuesday earn the dread rating of critical. Updates involving flaws in handling streaming media by Microsoft DirectX, bugs in Windows Media Format Runtime, and multiple vulnerabilities in IE all pose a severe risk. In all three cases the vulnerabilities addressed by the update …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Brace yourselves

    Linux blah blah blah, Firefox balh blah blah, Mac blah blah blah.

    All software has holes, all software has bugs. Get over it and keep them patched.

    The End.

  2. Pierre

    2 pcs

    Do like I do. Use a main pc for work and sensitive files that is rarely connected to the internet and another PC for internet access. For the internet access PC, once in a while re-image the O.S for a fresh installation.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ brace yourselves

    Except Windows is more like sieve. Catches the big things but allows thousands (millins?) of smaller things through.

    Instead of new varieties, M$ should develop an OS that may require the occasional patch but not the thousands they put out over it's lifetime.

    Can't wait to get flamed by all the M$ fanbois!!

  4. Robin
    Happy

    Flames? No...

    But perhaps a comment on the naiveté of some of the Reg readers.

    > Instead of new varieties, M$ should develop an OS that may require the occasional patch but not the thousands they put out over it's lifetime.

    Sure. But here's the thing. My car has around 10,000 moving parts and I have to bring it in for routine maintainance and fluid changes twice a year. Windows XP has well over 40 million lines of code and I need to update it twelve times a year.

    Now, I'm not a math teacher, but I think I am smarter than a fifth grader, so here goes: Simple ratios put it at 10,000:2 vs 40,000,000:12. Reduce to 5,000:1 for the car vs. 3,333,333:1 for the software.

    Seems to me that Microsoft does pretty well. :)

    All fun aside. Seriously. 40 million lines of code. Really think about that for a minute, then reread what you wrote.

  5. andy rock

    @ Pierre

    i used to work with a guy who installed something called 'Freeze' on his machine. it basically took the machine back to a known point every time he booted it. safe for his kids to surf the net with, etc.

    here: http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp

  6. Slaine
    Thumb Up

    M$ fan

    ... aaaaarrrggghhhhh another fekkin security update......

    why can't they bundle them all together and store them on a secure government cd - the'd get out much faster that way.

  7. Harry Stottle
    Unhappy

    Where's the successor to Autopatcher?

    it was the (near) perfect solution and It's been dead since August. It doesn't usually take the geek community this long to route around the blockage...

  8. Charley

    @ Robin

    Or, to put it another way, it takes one mechanic to service my car. Microsoft has about 60,000 employees.

    Mechanic:10,000/1 = 10,000.

    Microsoft: 40,000,000/60,000 ~= 666

    Seriously, stick to cars.

  9. michael
    Coat

    @deepfreesze

    http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp

    that pice of software was a life saver when I ran a internet cafe any changes upto formating the hdd a simple had reset (pull the power cord) and it was undone that and a linux server made me imune to all malware just kill everything (on time vier the main circuit breaker) and back and ready

    ...my coat is the anarok with the starteck logo on it

  10. Nick

    @Robin

    Robin wrote:

    "Now, I'm not a math teacher, but I think I am smarter than a fifth grader"

    Unfortunately your joke may have gone over the heads of the UK readers where the show is called "Are you smarter than a ten year old?"

  11. Matt Daley
    Stop

    KB942615

    Watch what you're doing when you install this. Once I'd installed it, IE7 could no longer browse the Internet. This was the same on several computers in my house. Once I uninstalled it and rebooted, IE worked again. Obviously there is something wrong with it. There are lots of comments around citing similar problems.

    So, DON'T INSTALL IT!!

  12. Charley
    Gates Horns

    KB942615

    As long as it doesn't damage Firefox I don't see the problem. Why did you uninstall it?

  13. JP Strauss
    Coat

    @Charley

    "Or, to put it another way, it takes one mechanic to service my car. Microsoft has about 60,000 employees.

    Mechanic:10,000/1 = 10,000.

    Microsoft: 40,000,000/60,000 ~= 666"

    What's the Bible say about the number 666 again?

    --Off to have a cold one.

This topic is closed for new posts.