Microsoft today said it will deliver a record 14 security updates next week to patch a record-tying 34 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office and Silverlight.

But people still running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) will receive only a few of those fixes.

"Call it Massive Patch Tuesday," said Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of security risk and compliance provider Qualys. "It's a huge update, and more importantly, everybody's involved. I'm actually a little surprised at how large it is."

Eight of the 14 updates were tagged with Microsoft's "critical" label, the highest threat ranking in its four-step scoring system. The remaining six were marked "important," the second-highest rating.

Next week's Patch Tuesday will be a record on several fronts.

More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180210/