It's that time of the month again when Microsoft release a bumper patch collection. Tuesday will see the following released:

6 Microsoft Windows patches
4 Office patches
and a .NET framework patch.

Before these patches come out I thought it would be a good idea to go through and explain some of the terminology associated with a patch.

Patch - A patch is a SINGLE fix for a specific problem. Sometimes a patch can and will affect more than one file or more than one operating system. It is normal for these to be included in a single deployment package.

cumulative patch - A cumulative patch is a collection of patches for a SINGLE application and can be deployed without having to install all previous patches in a specific order.

Security rollup - A security rollup is a collection of patches for a variety of applications and services. A rollup can be deployed in place of the individual patches. A rollup SHOULD NOT (but has) included updates or additional fixes that are NOT available as individual patches.

Service pack - A service pack is a collection of security fixes much like the rollup but can include new fixes and NEW FUNCTIONALITY in the release. (e.g. Windows XP SP2 which included the firewall).

R2 release - A R2 release is a new thing from Microsoft. It generally arrives 2 to 3 years after a product has shipped and can include bug fixes and new functionality. it should not include any security patches. As such any further discussions of R2 releases will be for another blog!