Microsoft’s John Cable marked the twentieth anniversary of Patch Tuesday, or what’s now referred to as the Tuesday of Week B within the software program big’s Home windows replace schedule.
“This yr marks a vital milestone for the historical past of Microsoft, the Home windows product, and for larger computing: 20 years of Patch Tuesday updates,” he writes. “With greater than 1.4 billion month-to-month lively Home windows units in service, and billions extra units served alongside the journey of Home windows, our aim is to maintain customers around the globe protected and productive.”
Cable’s historical past is imprecise on the small print, and there are solely date ranges, not particular dates. So we study that Patch Tuesday got here out of Microsoft’s 2002 Reliable Computing initiative, which has oddly come up just a few instances just lately. And that the primary Patch Tuesday arrived … someday in 2003. Someday between 2008 and 2012, Microsoft added Home windows Server Replace Providers (WSUS) and the Microsoft Baseline Safety Analyzer (MBSA) for organizations. After which Home windows 10 arrived in “2013 to 2017” with “Home windows as a Service.” (It was 2015.) And so forth.
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It’s too dangerous he couldn’t have been bothered to be extra detail-oriented right here, given the complete level of Patch Tuesday. Ah effectively.
“Microsoft stays dedicated to our mission,” he provides. “Our investments assist each particular person and group around the globe to realize extra, whereas staying protected and productive with Home windows.”
After which it simply will get foolish, assuming you might have any data of the previous yr. Patch Tuesday has advanced to be “principle-based,” he says. Which means it’s predictable, easy, agile, and clear, besides in fact that that is precisely what Patch Tuesday and Home windows updating aren’t.
So yeah, let’s pour one out for Patch Tuesday, one thing that was created at a time when Microsoft took Home windows and the purchasers who use it significantly. I’d like to see a return to the predictable, easy, agile, and clear days of yore. I miss them terribly.
