Microsoft made available no less than 11 security bulletins on October 14, with all the patches delivered via Windows Update. However, as it is the tradition with the Redmond company, the patches reserved for the Windows client and server operating systems are also served, packaged as an ISO image. In this regard, the October 2008 Security Release ISO Image for Windows operating systems, including Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Window XP Service Pack 3, is now available for download.

October “is another fairly heavy month, with 11 bulletins covering 20 vulnerabilities. There are 10 critical issues this month affecting Internet Explorer, Excel, Active Directory, and the RPC service of Host Integration Server. All of them are remote code-execution issues, but the issues affecting Host Integration Server and Active Directory do not require any user interaction, making them potentially the worst of the bunch. The remaining issues (rated Important and Moderate) affect Message Queuing Service, Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), Windows Kernel, Ancillary Function Driver, Virtual Address Descriptors (VADs), and Server Message Block (SMB),” revealed Symantec's Robert Keith.

In addition to releasing the patches via the Windows Update infrastructure, Microsoft has packed all of this month's security updates for Windows in the October 2008 Security Release ISO Image. The package leaves out the patches that are not connected with the Windows operating system. In this regard, the October 2008 Security Release ISO Image will only allow access to the following updates: MS08-060; MS08-061; MS08-062; MS08-063; MS08-064; MS08-065; MS08-066.

“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 informed.

The October 2008 Security Release ISO Image is available for download here.