Microsoft will release six critical bulletins on February 9, 2010 Patch Tuesday that affect all the currently supported versions of Windows on both the desktop and server. A system restart will be required for these Windows patches.

"With bulletin six it might be worthwhile to move up the maintenance window if needed", says Don Leatham, senior director of solutions and strategy for Lumension.

An unlucky 13 updates to Windows and Office will be released addressing 26 vulnerabilities. In October, 2009 the number was 34. IT teams should look at their maintenance windows and see how and when they can get these critical patches out.

11 of the updates affect various versions of Microsoft Windows, from Windows 2000 up through the current versions of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. 5 of the vulnerabilities are rated Critical on at least one platform, and Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have 2 bulletins each rated Critical. 1 bulletin is rated Important for Microsoft Office XP and Office 2003, and another is rated Important for Office 2004 for Mac.

There will also be the usual updates to the Malicious Software Removal Kit, to the Windows Mail Junk Filter, and there will be several non-security updates.