Today, Microsoft announced in its TechNet site that it is delaying this month’s updates due to a “last minute” issue. This announcement came just hours before the patches were to begin rolling out to customers.
Microsoft has issued updates and security fixes on the second Tuesday of every month like clockwork since it began the Patch Tuesday process, so this is pretty unusual. Normally, Microsoft issues the updates around 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET).
Our top priority is to provide the best possible experience for customers in maintaining and protecting their systems. This month, we discovered a last minute issue that could impact some customers and was not resolved in time for our planned updates today.
After considering all options, we made the decision to delay this month’s updates. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this change to the existing plan.
Previously, Microsoft delivered independent updates for Windows. This means the company could delay a single patch without impeding the company’s ability to release all other fixes. However, the company announced in August, that it would offer only cumulative security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1. This change ended the decades-old practice of letting customers choose which patches they applied. The new maintenance model for the older editions was a direct transplant from Windows 10, which has relied on cumulative updates since its mid-2015 launch.
By “cumulative,” Microsoft meant that each update included the contents of all earlier releases, along with new fixes. However, as soon as Microsoft began packaging all patches into single item, it lost the power to postpone one fix while still releasing others. In other words, the company must release all its scheduled patches, or none of them. This is the reason why we will not see any updates today.
Microsoft has not revealed any details on exactly what the issue preventing the updates is, and it is unclear when we might expect them to roll out in full.
