Patch Tuesday February 2025

Patch Tuesday February 2025: new Apple bytes, printer printanier updates, more Microsoft mayhem. If you’re not sure what you should be updating every month and why, read Patch Primer for Small Business.

Apple bytes

Apple released a barrel of updates February 10th for most of their products. Apple patched a ton of security problems particularly on iPhone and Mac OS (various flavours).

Apple released Watch OS 11.3.1 as well. They still haven’t fixed the charging problems even on newer watches with this update.

Details on Apple security updates here.

Sidenote: Apple just released their latest iPhone, iPhone 16e, which is meant to replace earlier iPhoneSE smaller phones. While Apple has provided the latest chip so you can use their Apple Intelligence, you are limited to 128GB of space and the camera is a throwback to years gone by. Also no MagSafe charging. More about the new iPhone 16e here.

Adobe Updates

Adobe released patches for almost everything in the Creative Cloud suite February 11th.

No new updates for Acrobat and Reader since December 2024.

Details on February Adobe Security Updates here.

Microsoft Mayhem

Microsoft released patches for 56 vulnerabilities this Patch Tuesday February 2025. For one of these, Microsoft patched a vulnerability that requires very little user interaction for hackers to exploit.

More details on Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday here.

Reminder: Microsoft updates can break other software and devices. Check for updates for other software and your printer(s).

Nitro Pro PDF

My preferred PDF software, Nitro Pro released multiple updates over the last two months. Nitro released patches that fixed items definitely broken by recent Microsoft Windows updates including add-ons in Microsoft Office 365.

How do you check if you’re update to date? Click on the Help menu. Click Check for Updates.

Printer Printanier

Tons of updates for Brother and Epson printers recently. I suspect this has to do with Microsoft’s ongoing meddling with printer drivers. Getting really tired of removing printers that Microsoft has auto-installed with their crappy IPP drivers.

If your printer no longer can print on various paper types (like glossy or matte), takes forever to print a one page document or just magically disappears you can bet Microsoft updates are the culprit.

To make sure you get the right printer driver/software, go directly to the manufacturer web site (example: www.epson.com ) then search support for your model.