It will be 26 fewer security holes in Windows and Office.
Microsoft is Tuesday next week with 13 different security updates to its software. In all there are 26 different vulnerabilities that should be removed. Two of the patches affect Office products, while the other is calculated for different Windows versions.
Each of the Windows versions starting with Windows 2000 are affected by between five and nine of the updates. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 comes out best.
The severity of the updates varies from system to system, but at least three of the updates to each system is considered critical, which usually means that the vulnerabilities can give attackers access to the execution of arbitrary code. 
The distribution of security updates in February 2010. (Illustration: Jerry Bryant, Microsoft)
Internet Explorer vulnerability that became known this week, is not among those being removed this time, writes Jerry Bryant in this blog post. He writes further that even a well-known SMB-related vulnerability that allows denial of service attack is not in this instance.
Among the security patches that seem to come with is one that removes one of the Windows Kernel that could give users increased privileges.
Office vulnerabilities affecting only older versions, not Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac.
More details can be found in this article.
Bryant adds that the company will end support for Windows Vista RTM on May 13 April. In future, new security updates require that a service pack is installed. SP1 will be supported until the 12 July 2011.
Soon, very end for Windows 2000
The 13 July this year, Microsoft will end support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2, as well as the expanded support for Windows 2000.
This means that it no longer will be released security updates to these products. Users of Windows XP SP2, however, install Service Pack 3, which will continue to be supported.
