 | By Susan Bradley One measure of our success battling malware is the number of patches we’re asked to install each month. By that benchmark, we’re surely losing. The patch count for December is a record for the year, with fixes for Internet Explorer, zero-day bugs, and DLL preloading threats. This might be end-of-year house cleaning, as most of the patches are not critical. |
Stick with Windows XP SP2; lose security
This does not relate to a specific new patch, but I think it’s important to mention. In Fred Langa’s column, a reader asks whether he should install XP SP3. My answer? Absolutely!
If you’re not running XP SP3, you won’t receive the latest updates — Microsoft no longer supports Service Pack 2. SP2 users will most likely miss vital fixes. The company will reportedly provide security updates for SP3 until 2014.
► What to do: Windows XP SP2 users should go to the SP3 TechCenter page and download the package. Do it now!
2412171
Put a hold on this Outlook 2007 patch
It looks like the nonsecurity Outlook update described in MS Support article 2412171 is causing slowdowns with Outlook 2007, if certain add-ins are installed.
As noted in the Outlook Answers forum and in Officeforlawyers.com, the problem appears related to the COM add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. It may also impact folks using Outlook to connect to Gmail.
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