The first Patch Tuesday updates of the year will be rolled out next week

Jan 4, 2013 05:50 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has just published its advance notification for this month’s Patch Tuesday cycle, revealing that it would release a total of seven different updates developed to patch bugs in a total of 12 software solutions.

Both Windows 8 and Windows 7 will receive critical updates on January 8, Microsoft said, while Windows RT platforms will get three important updates.

Two of the seven patches are flagged as “critical,” while five are considered “important,” according to the security bulletin.

Surprisingly, no Internet Explorer update is included in the first Patch Tuesday cycle of the year, so it may seem like the recently discovered Internet Explorer 8 security flaw remains unpatched for the time being.

Microsoft has already released a Fix it tool for the bug, but a downloadable patch was expected next week.