The light Patch Tuesday will certainly be welcome by IT admins--many of which are probably still trying to dig out and implement the updates from the that hit in June.

Amol Sarwate, Vulnerability Labs Manager for , explains, "The highest priority update is rated "Critical" and only affects Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The second highest priority will most likely be bulletin four--which fixes a remote code execution in Visio 2003 SP3."

Paul Henry, Security and Forensic Analyst at , cautions, though, "While this Patch Tuesday may appear insignificant with just four patches (a quarter of what we saw last month), the reality is that it will be rather disruptive, as all the patches impact Windows and Office and require a restart."

Henry adds that the cycle of detecting vulnerabilities and racing to patch them is fundamentally flawed. "This is an issue many technology providers consistently deal with and if they care about their users, will attempt to resolve. Of course, their attempts to stay on top of these updates are often in vain, as it's a function that is becoming ever more frequent and critical."

Andrew Storms, Director of Security Operations for , comments, "The good news is we can expect a light month and that's always a relief after a massive patch like the one we had in June. It's hard to read the tea leaves with Microsoft, but we are expecting the usual updates to older versions of Microsoft Office."