What to do before “Patch Tuesday”?

What to do before “Patch Tuesday”? Why Advanced Notification on security bulletins is important?

Quote

Most security-conscious users are aware that Microsoft provides monthly security bulletins. They release the security bulletins on the 2nd Tuesday of each month. Prior to releasing the security bulletin, Microsoft has a policy of also notifying the users in advance the number of bulletins, products affected, restart information and severities. Also the date they plan to outline the said information and the date of security bulletin release.

What to do before “Patch Tuesday”?

Below are some suggestions on what you can do before “Patch Tuesday”:

Undo any 3rd party work-around or any work-around that you did on affected system or components in Windows that is going to be patched
Create a backup of your good system (see also: System Back-up) and/or ensure that System Restore service is enabled, actually running, working and not corrupted or in the good state. Note: System Restore is available in Windows Millennium (Me) and the Windows XP (Home and Professional) Operating Systems.

To check whether System Restore is enabled and actually running:

Click Start>Run...
Type services.msc
Click OK button
Locate System Restore Service in the list of services and verify that the status is “Started”.

Note: You may also access the Services Console by going to Control Panel>Performance and Maintenance>Administrative Tools>Services.

Remember, as per Microsoft…

Quote

if an improper shutdown occurs, there is a small possibility that a restore could fail because System Restore may not have logged some file operations properly at the time of shutdown. If the restore fails, the system will be in the same state as before the restore was initiated

so you should check whether System restore is working and not corrupted or in the good state. To do that:

Examine event logs using Event Viewer in Windows for any system restore-related errors.
To allow System Restore to work properly, verify that you have enough free space on all your drives as required by System Restore.
Test by manually creating a Restore point.

To learn more about System Restore in Windows, go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....stemrestore.asp and http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...n/faqsrwxp.mspx

Why Advanced Notification on security bulletins is important?

Whether you are a home user or not, the Microsoft Security Advanced Notification is important because it can assist you in planning for the monthly security bulletin release.

Imagine having a system that was not backed-up and/or System Restore is not running, working or not enabled, and the security updates caused issues with your system and/or your 3rd party application? You’re screwed and maybe you’ll be finding yourself starting from a scratch or trying to use the “Last Known Good Configuration”.

Microsoft is releasing security bulletin information in Microsoft Security Advanced Notification page three business days prior to the bulletin release date. This means you have 3 business days or 5 calendar days (if the information was published on Friday) to prepare your system before Patch Tuesday! Create a back-up or manually create a restore point or ensure that System Restore is working. This will keep you confident that the you can easily go back to the earlier system state if anything goes wrong!

To receive notification on Security Bulletins and other security information that need to know on Windows, simply go to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/...tin/notify.mspx and choose which service you want to use. Calendar of Updates also enter entries on those security informations but we do it manually and if anyone from the contributors caught it.

http://dozleng.com/internetsecurity/2006/0...s-is-important/

This post has been edited by Triple Helix: 14 October 2009 - 03:32 AM