Hi everyone, I’m back, with important news about updates to your computer.

This past Aug. 12 was Patch Tuesday. Microsoft released a giant security update for Windows, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Office including Word, and Works. A total of 26 bugs were fixed in this release, six of which are considered critical. Two or more of these flaws have already been exploited by the hackers.

Four of the bugs were considered by some researchers to be zero-day flaws, because details of the flaws were circulating on the Internet, and no fix was available prior to Aug. 12. You may also notice one of the updates is a kill-bit. This disables vulnerable ActiveX controls from and Aurigma.

You may need your original Office or Works disk to complete the update, so have it handy before you start. You will have to restart your computer afterwards.

One expected fix that did not appear was a patch for critical flaws in Windows Media Player 11 for . Microsoft said the patch was not ready. Until it is, try to use another media player.

will soon update your version of Windows Update (WU) itself, whether you like it or not. You will get it even if you set your PC not to download or install any updates. It is supposed to be faster and provide more information on updates.

Check that you have downloaded and installed the latest updates automatically, or go to the Microsoft Update site right now and do it.

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