Making Headlines

Now here's a headline Microsoft would just as soon not be tied to.

In what could be seen as a great development for your Boca Raton computer repair shop, but a bad one for the average user, the company issued software patches and fixes for 31 different security flaws.

That was just yesterday. It was a single-day record.

The patches that came out repair vulnerabilities in Windows, and Office, as well as Internet Explorer and key pieces of software used in business data centers.

In large part, some security flaws are inevitable for a company whose products are targeted most by hackers, as they have such a large market share.

Many times, local computer departments and providers of IT support find it difficult to install patches to correct security flaws because the patches themselves interfere with existing programs.

In worst-case scenarios, patches themselves have been known to crash computers.

However, and fortunately, this is a rare occurrence, and experts say the Internet security dangers you face by not updating your computer are far greater.

In order to fix this laundry list of potential security holes and flaws, Microsoft issued 10 total updates yesterday alone, according to reports.

For the typical home computer user, you can obtain the updates by going to the company's homepage via Internet Explorer, clicking on Security and Updates at the top navigation bar and scrolling down to Microsoft Updates and following the Updates Wizard.

One recommended method to receive "Automatic Updates" from Microsoft and configure your computer to receive said updates regularly is as follows:

• Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Security.
• Click Security Center, and then make sure Automatic updating is turned on.