This weekend we received messages from microsoft regarding windows updates. Is it necessary or advisable to immediately download them?

 

This is a good question, and it comes up quite often. Microsoft notifies users of critical updates mostly when they release security updates.

How does this affect you? The patches that you get the notifications for are to fix potentially harmful “loopholes” in windows. These loopholes are often things such as ways that a malicious person could gain access to your machine, or gather information about you from your machine.

Better still, about the time that Microsoft addresses these problems, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, the Internet community becomes aware of the vulnerability. This means that the possibility of someone exploiting it increases dramatically.

Like many people, I often grumble about the timing of when they arrive, but it’s always a good idea to apply them when they arrive. This helps to make sure that you don’t forget to apply it later, and find yourself affected by the problem they have a fix for.

I hope this helps,