How To Make Sure Microsoft Updates Your Computer On Patch Tuesday

The second Tuesday of every month is called Patch Tuesday and it's the day Microsoft releases updates for Windows, Office, Internet Explorer and other Microsoft products.

It's vital that you protect your computers and servers from the latest threats, and that is why you need to make sure these security updates install properly.

If Windows automatic updates is turned on, your computer will download the updates automatically and install them the next time you shut down or restart. If the updates still need to be installed, you will see a yellow security badge or shield on the shutdown button in your Start menu, and/or on your taskbar to the right of the screen..

Click the button to turn off your computer and install the security updates. This could take a little bit of time, so make sure you don't need to use your computer anytime soon.

If you don't see the notification, go to Start>>Control Panel>>All Programs>>Windows Update. This is the place to checkand see if there are updates that need to be installed on your computer. If there are updates available, click the Install Updates button.

Make sure you doublecheck the "most recent check for updates" date and time to see if the computer checked in the last day or so. If your computer hasn't checked for udpates recently, click the Check for Updates link.

Best Practice: Have automatic updates check for new updates nightly at about 3:00am, and leave your computer/server on at night for updates and virus scans. In that way, your computer is not trying to do updates while you are trying to do work on your computer.

Remember also to restart your computer every morning first thing before use. In that way, all updates requiring a restart will be complete, cashe will be cleared, memory refreshed, and all items will be written properly to disk.