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Ops 301 Class 05
Microsoft’s “Patch Tuesday” occurs on the second Tuesday of each month. This is the day when Microsoft releases large update packages for Windows and its other software.
As Microsoft patches security vulnerabilities, it doesn’t release those patches immediately. Instead, the company gathers those fixes into a larger update, which is released on Patch Tuesday.
Microsoft does this to make the update process as predictable as possible for administrators. IT professionals know that patches will arrive on the second Tuesday of each month, and they can make plans to test or install them. Which, theoretically, should make it easier than continually applying smaller patches and more predictable than huge patches arriving on a random day of the month to run tests and administer installation of the updates.
Microsoft doesn’t have a guaranteed time these patches and Microsoft’s information bulletins about them will be released. These updates generally arrive around 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, but they may be released later in the day.
Since Windows 10 checks for updates about once per day, the average Windows PC should automatically download these updates via Windows Update by Wednesday afternoon if it’s powered on and connected to the internet. Of course, administrators may choose to delay and test these updates before deploying them to PCs in their organizations.
In Microsoft’s update parlance, Patch Tuesday updates are called “B” updates because they’re released in the second week of each month.
For example, Adobe also releases security updates for its software like the Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in and Acrobat Reader PDF viewer on Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday.
Microsoft also issues optional update packages in the third or fourth weeks of the month. They’re known as the “C” and “D” updates. These include bug fixes and improvements for problems that aren’t security holes. After these updates are tested, their fixes make it into next month’s B update on Patch Tuesday.
These C and D updates now appear as “optional updates” in Windows Update on Windows 10.
Other companies have chosen to join Patch Tuesday to make things easier for system administrators to update their systems with security patches.
For example, Adobe also releases security updates for its software like the Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in and Acrobat Reader PDF viewer on Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday.
Microsoft now releases big updates to Windows 10 once every six months. For example, Windows 10’s last big update was the May 2019 Update, and it was preceded by the October 2018 Update.
These updates aren’t released on Patch Tuesday. They’re released on whatever day Microsoft decides to release them.
Even after the official release of each major update, the rollout process is slow. Big updates like these may not be automatically installed on your PC until months later, as Microsoft now uses AI to determine when it’s confident the update is safe to install for your combination of hardware and software. You can still choose to skip the wait and install them immediately, but Microsoft says you have better odds of a good experience if you decide to wait.
That’s very unlike Patch Tuesday updates, which don’t contain new features. They contain important security updates and already-tested bug fixes. By default, they’re automatically installed for all Windows users as soon as possible.
You can view information about Windows 10 updates on Microsoft’s Windows 10 Update History page.
As you might have noticed, Patch Tuesday isn’t the only date updates arrive. In some cases, Microsoft will issue “out-of-band” updates for particularly critical security flaws, especially ones that are being exploited in the wild.
However, if a security hole isn’t being exploited in the wild and it’s okay to wait a few weeks, Microsoft will wait for Patch Tuesday to issue that update.
Even if you do get one or more smaller patches in a month, there’s always bigger update coming on Patch Tuesday. It contains all the updates that didn’t have to be rushed out.
All content above is cited from the article found on How To Geek that explains Patch Tuesday.
New terms found in this article are
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"Patch Tuesday" - the name Microsoft gives the scheduled day of each month that they release their large update packages for Windows and other Microsoft software.
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"B Updates" - Updates that occur on the second week of the month.
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"C Updates" - Updates that occur on the third week of the month.
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"D Updates" - Updates that occur on the fourth week of the month.
This information is relevant to the material we are studying in this week's classes because it pertains to the job responsibilities of a Systems or Network Administrator, and what the rhythm is that most SysAdmins and NetAdmins synchronize with in order to plan the testing and deployment of scheduled Microsoft updates to their organization's domain hosts; likely many of these updates are administered via GPOs for efficiency, consistency, and controllability.