Microsoft Office gets its own Patch Tuesday

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday -- the day many company officials prefer to call "Update Tuesday" -- is continuing its creep towards occupying more days of the month.

Starting this month -- which meant Tuesday April 5 -- Microsoft is making the first Tuesday of the month the new day for Office updates for non-security issues, meaning bug fixes and enhanced/modified features, as first noted by Windows IT Pro.

Note: This change applies only to the MSI version of Office. Office Click-To-Run patches will go out on the second Tuesday, as they have in the past.

Microsoft disclosed the patching schedule change in a brief TechNet blog post on March 28. From that post:

"Starting in April, the non-security (Office) updates will be released in Microsoft Update and the Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) on the first Tuesday of the month, which is April 5 in this case. This will include all updates that have the Critical or Definition classification. Updates with the Security classification will continue to release on second Tuesday as usual."

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The second Tuesday of the month remains the regularly scheduled Patch Tuesday. Any security-specific fixes for Office will show up on that day, along with the bulk of the rest of Microsoft's security and non-security patches and fixes across its product line.

The third Tuesday of the month gradually has become another day when Microsoft provides various patches and updates, many of us have noticed. Add in firmware updates for Surface and other rogue patches (and revised patches) and it definitely does feel like Microsoft Patch Day is becoming Patch Month, as Windows IT Pro's Rod Trent commented this week....