June Windows Update To Be Biggest in a Year

Supersonic1425 writes "The BBC reports that this month's security update from Microsoft will be the one of the biggest this year. Nine of the patches are for Windows — one classed as critical — two are for Office and one for the Exchange e-mail server software." From the article: "At least one of the loopholes being patched is already being actively exploited by malicious hackers. ... Microsoft is not only tackling security problems but also the fallout of a legal case that the software giant lost."

let me be the first to say

[PrescriptionWarning]

that the genuine windows advantage checker thing is going to be making a lot of people mad when they find out their copy of windows won't update. Prepare ass for violent kicking by viruses!

Get your facts straight...

[Phil John]

...genuine advantage failure doesn't mean unpatched windows. Security updates will still be downloaded if you select "automatic updates", you just can't download nice addons like windows defender, media player etc.

Clarification

[BrynM]

From TFA:

Microsoft had to re-engineer Internet Explorer to stop a technology known as ActiveX automatically starting when users visit some websites. MS may have done this as a result of the Eolas suit, but the rest of us can consider it a security patch ;)

Re:ActiveX

[bheer]

Not a major problem out on the Internet, but many Corporates have internal web apps where this patch is going to screw things up royally.

IIRC, the workaround is to make sure your [object] tag is written out using (Java|VB)script. If you visit macromedia.com they use this technique and have a tutorial about it written up. And to be fair, MSDN's been letting developers know about this for ages.

Re:ActiveX

[Pirogoeth]

Here's the page [adobe.com] to which you probably were referring.

Microsoft has a tutorial on their MSDN site [microsoft.com] which discusses this as well.

So Illegal Copies Break The Law (Again)?

[aslate]

I find it interesting that illegal copies of Windows aren't able to update the fix for the legal settlement. Microsoft have finally changed their WGA tool to "Do not allow update unless user PC submits 'Yes it's valid'" from "Do not allow update unless user PC submits 'No i'm not valid'", i thought it was odd the way their system worked before.

This is why i'm using Autopatcher XP [autopatcher.com] (Annoying forum-based website), you can download the updates off them, see the details and unselect all the crap you don't want, without having to go through Microsoft and Windows validation. You just have to wait a while before they release the newest version.

Re:Get your facts straight...

[clydemaxwell]

I could be wrong, but won't "wuauclt.exe /detectnow" do that for you?

Re:The Mac way

[walt-sjc]

Nice flamebait. Apple doesn't charge for service packs - they charge for major releases just as MS does. They just don't pretend it's all new and totally change the version numbering and naming scheme like MS does. It's also less expensive - especially for multiple computers with the family pack availablilty ($200 for 5 licenses.) Not saying that Apple is perfect, but at least they don't have "activation" and "WGA" either.

Re:Sigh. It's gonna be...

[martums]

crap-free, printer-friendly view to aid in long week of patch craziness (yay) [bbc.co.uk]