Microsoft Patch Day: Critical Bulletins Expected

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced plans to release eight security bulletins on April 12, including "critical" fixes for flaws in several widely deployed applications.

As part of its advance notice mechanism, the software giant said five high-priority patches would deal only with flaws in the Windows operating system.

Three more bulletins with a maximum severity rating of "critical" will include fixes for the Microsoft Office suite, the MSN Messenger chat program, and Microsoft Exchange, which is widely used in large corporations using Microsoft infrastructure solutions.

Redmond notified enterprise administrators that some of the Windows, Office and Exchange updates will require a restart and will be detectable using the MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer).

The Microsoft Office and Exchange patches can also be detected with the MSBA.

The MSN Messenger update may also require a restart and can be detected with Microsofts EST (Enterprise Scanning Tool).

On April 12, the company will also roll out two non-security high-priority updates for Windows on the Windows Update side.

"These will be distributed to Software Update Services and are not required to install the security updates," according to the advance notice bulletin.

The monthly update of Microsofts worm removal tool will also be pushed out on Windows Update and the Download Center, but Microsoft stressed that the tool will not be distributed using SUS (Software Update Services).

While Microsoft is withholding technical details on the patches until April 12, there is a growing list of known, unpatched vulnerabilities in Microsoft products.

Next Page: A list of vulnerabilities.