14 DAY TRIAL // April’s Patch Tuesday security updates for Windows are available to customers not only through the company’s update delivery mechanism but also as a downloadable ISO image. Earlier this week, Microsoft started offering the April 2011 Security Release ISO Image on the Download Center, providing an alternative method to access this month’s Windows patches for IT professionals deploying security updates in multiple languages without the help of an automated solution.
As it’s usually the case, the latest release of the ISO of Microsoft patches contains only the updates released for supported Windows platforms, as opposite to all the fixes available to customers.
On April 12th, 2011, Microsoft provided “17 security bulletins, nine of which are Critical, and eight rated Important,” revealed Pete Voss, Sr. Response Communications Manager Microsoft Trustworthy Computing.
“These bulletins will increase protection by addressing 64 unique vulnerabilities in the following Microsoft products: Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, SMB, .NET Framework and GDI+.”
Only 12 of the 17 security bulletins in April impact various versions of Windows, including the recently launched Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM.
In fact, users will need to patch no less than 15 Critical security vulnerabilities in Windows 7 SP1 RTM alone, as well as some additional security holes rated only Important.
According to Voss, customers should deploy all security bulletins as soon as possible, while making sure to treat three of them as priorities.
The Redmond company advices users to expedite the deployment of MS11-018 for IE, MS11-019 for SMB Client and MS11-020 for SMB Server.
All three patch packages mentioned above are included in the Security Release ISO Image for April 2011, along with an additional nine security bulletins, all designed to resolve issues in Windows.
The Windows Security Release ISO Image for April 2011 is available for download here.