As is the general practice over at Microsoft, the monthly patch cycle releases are accompanied by the ISO Image that focuses exclusively on the security bulletins aimed at resolving the vulnerabilities in the Windows operating systems - both client and server side. And if you are up to it, Windows-KB913086-200802.iso, weighing in at approximately 2.3 GB features no less than seven security bulletins out of the total of 11 made available by Microsoft on February 12, 2008. The ISO image contains only patches designed for the Windows operating system including Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

"This is a fairly heavy month as Microsoft is releasing 11 bulletins that cover a total of 17 vulnerabilities. All the critical issues (10 in total) require some sort of user interaction to trigger an exploit. This can include following a link, viewing a Web page, or opening a malicious file. We have seen all of these types of issues before, so nothing new or overly exciting here. But the sheer number of critical issues being addressed this month should grab your attention. While Windows Vista is affected by only a couple of the issues, all versions of Windows are affected by at least some of the issues," explained Rob Keith, Symantec Security Response Engineer.

The fact of the matter is that all supported versions of Windows have to be patched following the February 2008 release of security bulletins. All but one. It seems that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not affected by any of the vulnerabilities plugged by this month's security updates, even the ones designed to resolve issues in Windows Vista. In this context, the exclusive few that are running Vista SP1 RTM will not have to apply any patch for their operating system.

"This DVD5 ISO image file contains the security updates for Windows released on Windows Update on February 12th, 2008. The image does not contain security updates for other Microsoft products. This DVD5 ISO image is intended for administrators that need to download multiple individual language versions of each security update and that do not use an automated solution such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). You can use this ISO image to download multiple updates in all languages at the same time," Microsoft revealed.

The February 2008 Security Releases ISO Image is available for download here.