Windows 7 and 8 individual patches removed as cumulative update model is coming

Microsoft will now change the way patches and updates are released for devices run on Windows 7 or Windows 8. From now on, the company will release two patches per month. The first one will be a cumulative security update that will include all security patches of the given month and the second one will contain all security and non-security fixes, including updates from previous monthly rollups.

• Second Tuesday of the month: The security update containing all the patches for a given month will be released and will be available only via WSUS and the Windows Update Catalog.
• Second Tuesday of the month: A monthly rollup update is released that will contain all security and non-security fixes, including all updates from previous monthly rollups which can be done via WSUS, Windows Update Catalog and Windows Update
• Third Tuesday of a month: A preview of the upcoming monthly rollup is released. This is classified as an optional update and is available through Windows Update, WSUS and the Windows Update Catalog.

The new update strategy is a good idea but will be quite problematic for system administrators and many users. Let’s not forget Microsoft used to release patches every now and then as it found issues in the operating system that caused random crashes. In the past, users could remove the update responsible for these issues but from now on, this will no longer be possible. Users instead will have to uninstall an entire month’s worth of security updates or a monthly rollup update to fix the problem.

Let’s not forget that it sometimes takes weeks for Microsoft to create a working patch, which means a large number of systems might become vulnerable for a long time.

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