Seven Critical patches due Tuesday

If you were hoping that this month's Patch Tuesday was going to pass by quietly, think again.

BetaNews has tracked down the details of what we can expect from Windows Update this month, and it's a pretty full bag with no fewer than seven patches for vulnerabilities rated as Critical.

The biggest of them all is a fix for a vulnerability, which Microsoft will not be disclosing until after the patch cycle has been and gone, in Windows Media Player running on XP, Vista, and Windows Server 2008 – although why you need a media player on a server beats the heck out of me. Accounting for three of the seven patches – one for each Windows version affected – the vulnerability is rated as Critical, which means it opens the possibility for a remote attacker to execute code of his or her choice.

Also covered this Tuesday will be another Critical patch for Internet Explorer, and yet another for the Microsoft Office suite. Finally, five Important patches rounds off what could prove to be a very busy day for sysadmins around the world. I personally will be testing the Server 2008 patch extremely carefully before applying it to anything under my control, lest the users string me up by my unmentionables.

Do you look forward to the monthly patch frenzy with dread or glee? Ever been caught out by something you know Microsoft already has a fix for but is holding back to keep to the release cycle, or do you approve of knowing exactly when the repairs are due? Share your thoughts over in the forums.