Microsoft plans to release 12 patches next Tuesday (13 February) as part of its regular monthly security update cycle.

These patches will include five security bulletins concerning Windows, at least one of which is critical, and two involving Office (of which one, at minimum, earns the dreaded critical rating). It remains to be seen whether these fixes will resolve a trio of Word flaws which have been left flapping about since early December.

Customers are reminded to keep their computers up to date, and to visit windowsupdate.microsoft.com about once a month, even if you have already installed updates recently and automatically.