Patch Tuesday October 2016: all the patch news you need this month for your business.
Windows 10 Woes
Among the 10 patches/bulletins released one week, one of them is a show stopper for Windows 10. As folks have been updating I am getting calls of dead or looping Windows 10 computers. It’s usually happening to computers in 4 years old range. Still investigating but it looks like a patch and some antivirus products are conflicting in the boot process so the computer won’t get even close to the login screen. Yikes!
Other Microsoft updates
Internet Explorer/Edge browse received a big security update. Also all version of Office still supported. Just a reminder Microsoft officially only supports Office 2013, Office 2016 and Office 365 now.
Hot Flash
Another Hot Adobe Flash patch harvest this month. Please Adobe, can you fix your product? Windows updates Flash for Edge as part of Patch Tuesday but if you are running Firefox on top of Windows (like most sane people do) you need to update this separately from the Adobe web site here. Remember to uncheck all the unwanted crapware they insist on bundling with the security update.
Adobe also released security updates for Acrobat and Reader products. In the program, go to Help on the menu and click Check for Updates.
But wait, there’s more. Also an update for Creative Cloud desktop software.
These updates are for both Mac and Windows Users.
Apple forcefeeds Sierra
Unbelievably Apple has taken a page from Microsoft and will automatically download the new OS X Sierra to your Mac if you have updates enabled. Gee what could wrong? Just ask Windows users. Program compatibility issues, hardware issues to name the biggest annoyances.
WordPress Whirlwind
WordPress core is still at 4.3 but lots of updates for plugins. Be sure to backup your website before doing the updates. Also, do the plugin updates in small batches, no more than 3 at a time. Otherwise you can get WordPress wobbles.
Java Jive
Oracle released a critical update to Java October 18th. Java is a plugin required by some websites to work properly. Install this update as soon as possible. If it prompts you to remove the previous version of Java, say yes.
Oracle is being sued in the United States.for how they updated Java in the past without removing the previous buggy versions.
An ounce of patching is better than a pound of hacking.
