Best practices for Microsoft Patch Tuesday

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Updated onMarch 18, 2024

updated onMarch 18, 2024

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If you own a Windows PC and like keeping it updated constantly, then you are familiar with whatPatch Tuesdayis.

For those of you who don’t know,PatchTuesday is generally the second Tuesday of every month whenMicrosoftreleases their latestupdatesacross all of their products. This is a time when everyone is eager to get the latestpatchesinstalled and see what new things are brought to the table.

Of course, if you want to be successful in installing PatchTuesdayupdateson your PC without any problems and as fast as possible, you’ll need to follow some steps first.

How do I get ready for Patch Tuesday?

1. How to avoid Patch Tuesday issues and errors

Read up on specialized forums what the newupdatesare supposed to bring and see whether or not they are worth installing at all.

Additionally, everysecurity updateissued byMicrosoftcomes with a bulletin that’s published by theMicrosoftSecurity Response Center at about the same times thepatchesare released.

If you read up and see that futureupdatesmay have issues that affect your work, in particular, make sure Windows Auto Update blocks automaticupdates.

While this is just a temporary solution, it may be a good idea to wait it out until hotfixes are released. For more info on how to do this, check out thisdedicated guide

As always, customers are advised to follow thesesecuritybest practices:

On the other hand, using athird-party PC repair toolwith powerful features oriented towards keeping your system and all the apps healthy is recommended.

2. How to download Patch Tuesday updates faster?

If you’ve read the documentation and see that the chance of encountering issues is minimal, you can go ahead and set Windows Auto Update to enabled. By doing this, your PC will automatically download thepatchand prepare to install it as soon as it is available in your region.

Like any otherupdate, if you don’t want to waste time waiting for it to finish, simply make sure nothing is taking up any of your bandwidth.

3. How does Patch Tuesday affect companies?

When it comes to companies that own hundreds of computers, implementingPatchTuesdayupdatesis a bit trickier. This is because implementing a companywidepatchmanagement process requires top-level support.

Though these steps may vary, the larger point is theupdatesshould not be installed as they become available.

You would then need to create a corepatchmanagement team, and have a testing process that also involves stakeholders in testing, which takes up time and resources.

This usually results in some brief company downtime, but if the IT department is well organized, this shouldn’t take too long.

Closing thoughts on best practices for Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday isn’t all that important for casual users, but for those that need their PC to be in tip-top shape at all times, it is one of the most important times of the month.

While admittedly Microsoft has never been successful at delivering issue-free updates, they always came through with hot-fixes immediately. All things considered, if you value your PC’s integrity, knowing how and when to apply Patch Tuesday updates can be critical in the long run.

If you found our article about PatchTuesday to be useful, let us know in the comments section below, and we will bring you more on the topic.

Best practices for Microsoft Patch Tuesday#

How do I get ready for Patch Tuesday?#

1. How to avoid Patch Tuesday issues and errors#

2. How to download Patch Tuesday updates faster?#

3. How does Patch Tuesday affect companies?#

Closing thoughts on best practices for Patch Tuesday#