On Thursday, in keeping with its usual schedule, Microsoft released the Security Bulletin Advanced Notification for November 2013, previewing the security bulletins and associated patches it intends to release on Tuesday, November 12, 2013. This month there are eight bulletins in all; three of these have a maximum security rating of Critical; the others are rated Important. Six of the bulletins affect Windows and its components. Two bulletins affect Microsoft Office. More details on specific versions are given in the Advanced Notification.
All supported versions of Windows have at least one Critical bulletin. The table below shows a breakdown of the Windows bulletins by severity and Windows version.
| Windows Version | Critical | Important | Moderate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows XP+SP3 | 3 | 2 | — |
| Windows Vista | 3 | 2 | — |
| Windows Server 2003 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Windows Server 2008 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Windows 7 | 3 | 2 | — |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Windows 8 | 3 | 3 | — |
| Windows RT | 3 | 1 | — |
| Windows Server 2012 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Windows 8.1 | 3 | 3 | — |
| Windows RT 8.1 | 3 | 1 | — |
| Windows Server Core | 1 | 3 | — |
The bulletins for Office are rated Important.
Microsoft says that five of the bulletins for Windows will definitely require a restart; the other bulletins may require one, depending on your system’s configuration.
As always, this information is subject to change between now and the actual release of the bulletins on Tuesday. If there are significant changes, I will post a note here once the actual updates are available.
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