How does Patch Tuesday work?

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by Radu Tyrsina 

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So maybe you’ve started paying more attention to how things are evolving with your Windows system. This means that you’ve surely heard about the term Patch Tuesday, but most probably you don’t know what it is.

As a quick summary, Patch Tuesday is an unofficial term used to refer to when Microsoft regularly releases updates for its software products.

It gets its name from the fact that it occurs on the second, and sometimes fourth Tuesday of every month, and Microsoft formalized Patch Tuesday back in 2003.

Now that you have a brief understanding of what it is, you should know how it works.

What goes behind implementing Patch Tuesday?

Patch tuesday

Down to its core, Patch Tuesday is just the implementation of all bugs fixes and updates that have occurred since the last update. They are all released as a singular package, with the occasional hot-fix follow-up if it ever comes with bugs or issues for users.

Most of the time though, Patch Tuesday updates usually involve security updates. This makes implementing them a must if you want to stay safe from the latest threats.

Why should I get patch Tuesday Updates?

These updates are not to be confused with daily updates. Those consist of malware database refreshes for Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials.

These updates are usually pushed through by Microsoft and made available to anyone. Of course, the main condition is that they have the Windows Update feature enabled.

While you could postpone installing Patch Tuesday updates, this isn’t recommended. This is because Patch Tuesday is usually followed by Exploit Wednesday, a day where cyber attacks are on the rise and they target those that haven’t installed the latest updates.

That’s pretty much everything there is to know about Patch Tuesday. If you have any further questions about it, let us know in the comments section below.

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Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina Shield

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.