Today, in the series, “it seems unbelievable that they have already happened n years from…” of this tip, which is starting to sound like the onion’s grandfather, Patch Tuesday, probably one of the best ideas Redmond has had regarding Windows and security its users. For two decades, thanks to this great idea, users of the various versions of Windows that have been released since then have been able to use their computers with more peace of mind.

In case you don’t know what exactly that is, Patch Tuesday is the name given to Microsoft’s publishing policy, every second Tuesday of the month, a Windows update dedicated exclusively to fixing security issues. Users who do not want to apply regular updates to their operating system, but want to apply all those related to its security, thanks to it, have a simple way to protect their computer from many updates. threats.

Of course, applying Patch Tuesday updates doesn’t replace the need for security tools and common sense, but it does protect us from system failures that, even without our direct involvement, could lead to unauthorized access and/or use. our system. Unlike other updates, where we normally recommend delaying their installation for at least the first few weeks (in case a problem is discovered during them), our policy for Patch Tuesdays, as with urgent security updates, must be that from install them in much less time.

As I said at the beginning, Microsoft has repeated and commemorates 20 years of Patch Tuesday, as we can read on the official Windows blog. In this publication, they tell us that the origin goes back several years, to 2001, to be precise January 12th of that year. That day, the company’s still head, Bill Gates, sent an email to all Microsoft employees announcing the Trustworthy Computing (TwC) initiative and calling for efforts to drastically reduce the number of trust issues. security in windows

“Customers should receive their security patches automatically.”
Bill Gates

Although at the time the email that started it all was sent the current version of the Windows operating system was MW, a few months later (in October) Windows XP would hit the marketon which Patch Tuesday debuted back in 2003. Later came Vista, 7, 8, 10 and 11 and with them changes and improvements to Windows security processes and procedures, but since then and in all (and probably Windows 12 too), updates every on the second Tuesday of the month continued and will continue to be a key element of its protection, along with out-of-band updates that have protected against last-minute threats on more than one occasion.