Microsoft's Wee did say that the company hoped to do better in the future. "Ultimately, our goal is to make sure the Flash Player in Windows 8 is always secure and up-to-date, and to align our release schedule as closely to Adobe's as possible," she said.

That may be difficult. While Microsoft has a monthly patching schedule -- today, in fact, is September's Patch Tuesday -- Adobe does not adhere to any set patching schedule for Flash Player.

Google, which has provided , has never had a problem keeping up with Adobe's here-and-there patching. In some instances, Google has actually beaten Adobe to the patch punch by shipping a Chrome update hours or even days, before Adobe releases fixed plug-ins for other browsers.

Microsoft will deliver the Flash Player update for IE10 on Windows 8 via Windows Update, as well as through Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at , on or subscribe to . His email address is .