What you need to know
- Windows 10's October Patch Tuesday updates are now rolling out.
- These updates bring the usual security improvements and bug fixes.
- You can download these updates for Windows 10 version 2004 and older now.
- Patch Tuesday updates are also available for Beta and Release Preview Windows Insiders using the October 2020 Update.
It's that time of the month again: Windows 10's Patch Tuesday updates for October are now rolling out. These updates are available for supported versions of Windows 10, including version 2004 and older. As usual, the cumulative updates don't include any new features, but they do include bug and security fixes.
If you're running Windows 10 version 2004, you'll see an update to build 19041.572. Here's what's included:
- Addresses an issue with a possible elevation of privilege in win32k.
- Addresses an issue with the Group Policy service that might recursively delete critical files in alphabetic order from %systemroot%\systm32. This issue occurs when a policy has been configured to delete cached profiles. These file deletions might cause stop error "0x5A (CRITICAL_SERVICE_FAILED)" boot failures.
- Addresses an issue with creating null ports using the user interface.
- Security updates to Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Microsoft Graphics Component, Windows Media, Windows Fundamentals, Windows Authentication, Windows Virtualization, and Windows Kernel.
Those same fixes, oddly enough, are also available for the still-in-testing October 2020 Update. The updates are rolling out to Beta and Release Preview Insiders now.
Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 will see a bump to builds 18362.1139 and 18363.1139. Here's what's new:
- Addresses an issue with a possible elevation of privilege in win32k.
- Addresses an issue with the Group Policy service that might recursively delete critical files in alphabetic order from %systemroot%\systm32. This issue occurs when a policy has been configured to delete cached profiles. These file deletions might cause stop error "0x5A (CRITICAL_SERVICE_FAILED)" boot failures.
- Addresses an issue with creating null ports using the user interface.
- Security updates to Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Microsoft Graphics Component, Windows Media, Windows Shell, Windows Cloud Infrastructure, Windows Fundamentals, Windows Authentication, Windows Virtualization, Windows Kernel, and Windows Storage and Filesystems.
Windows 10 version 1803 will see the following improvements with build 17134.1792:
- Adds a notification to Internet Explorer 11 that informs users about the end of support for Adobe Flash in December 2020. For more information, see KB4581051.
- Addresses an issue with Microsoft Edge IE Mode that occurs when you enable Configure enhanced hang detection for Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge.
- Allows administrators to disable JScript in specific security zones.
- Addresses an issue with a possible elevation of privilege in win32k.
- Updates 2021 time zone information for Fiji.
- Addresses an issue with the Group Policy service that might recursively delete critical files in alphabetic order from %systemroot%\systm32. This issue occurs when a policy has been configured to delete cached profiles. These file deletions might cause stop error "0x5A (CRITICAL_SERVICE_FAILED)" boot failures.
- Addresses an issue with creating null ports using the user interface.
- Security updates to Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Microsoft Graphics Component, Windows Media, Windows Fundamentals, Windows Authentication, Windows Virtualization, Windows Kernel, and Windows Storage and Filesystems.
Older versions of Windows 10 have a similar set of updates to version 1803. For the full list, you can check out all of Microsoft's release notes for the October Patch Tuesday updates.
If you're running a supported version of Windows 10, you can grab today's updates now via Windows Update.
