14 DAY TRIAL // The sheer volume of the information related to Internet Explorer security patches is simply too much for Microsoft's browser to handle. The past week, in line with the traditional monthly patch cycle, the Redmond company made available MS07-069 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer. End user feedback pointed immediately to issues loading Bulletin webpage. It is clear at this point that the initial problems were in fact associated with the latest cumulative collection of update served to IE. But this was not the case. According to Microsoft, the actual security patches did nothing to impact the slow way in which the Bulletins page was loading and producing not found or timing out errors.
Kieron Shorrock, the Microsoft Security Response Center Program Manager responsible for Internet Explorer, explained that the reports of sluggish loading webpages focused exclusively on the bulletins details. "The reason customers are only experiencing these issues with the IE bulletin is due to the amount of detail in the bulletin text. Over time, the File Information section has grown. Given all Internet Explorer security updates are cumulative, the File Information section has grown with each release. We do this so customers only need to install the latest Internet Explorer security update to be protected", Shorrock revealed.
As a direct consequence of the input coming from users, Microsoft has updated the MS07-069 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer. In this context, all the File information details have been transitioned to a Knowledge Base article. Because the KB is adjacent to the bulletin, the loading issues have been resolved. At this point in time, Microsoft plans to implement this strategy into all future security updates. Shorrock stressed the fact that the security packages delivered to end users have not been impacted.
"We are now at a point where the page related to the bulletin text is taking too long to load, resulting in the issues customers have been reporting to us. We have therefore decided to move the File Information details into the Knowledge Base article associated with the bulletin. We have only made the change to MS07-069 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer Bulletin. This will reduce the size of the page allowing it to load faster and more reliably. We had planned to move the File Information details into the Knowledge Base early next year, but because customers are affected today, we decided to make the changes sooner", Shorrock added.