13 October 2004 Software giant Microsoft has released over 20 patches to protect against flaws in its products, in the latest of its monthly security updates.

Microsoft issued the patches despite many of the fixes having been resolved in its XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). But many firms have shied away from installing SP2 prior to extensive testing because of concerns that the range of fixes provided in SP2 would impact other enterprise applications.

Through releasing the fixes as part of its monthly patch cycle – many of which address problems in older operating systems, servers and applications – Microsoft is giving customers wary of SP2 an alternative, more selective method of patching their systems.

But despite the intensive effort that went into developing SP2, Microsoft has also released patches for flaws not addressed in that release.

October’s monthly patch sees Microsoft address flaws in its Internet Explorer web browser that will alleviate some potential ‘spyware’ issues, as well as addressing issues in Microsoft Exchange. In total Microsoft released 22 security patches.