What Do These Safety Updates Do?
These patches from Microsoft replace a number of particular person files concerned in making Home windows and other Microsoft software program work.
Do I Need These Security Updates?
You need these updates if you're running any currently supported, 32-bit or 64-bit, Windows operating system: Windows 8 (including Windows RT), Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP, plus Windows server versions.
Security updates are also being pushed for Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, as well as the free Microsoft Visio Viewer 2010 program.
Most of this month's updates fix problems so serious that if left unpatched, it's possible that someone could gain access to your computer. These issues are given a Critical severity rating.
Other fixes this month aren't quite as serious but are security issues that should be corrected nonetheless. These issues are given a severity rating of Important.
Are There Any Non-Security Updates This Month?
Yes, most notably the roll-out of Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) to Windows 7 users. Additionally, there are several non-security fixes for Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 7, and current Windows Server versions.
Also, as usual, Microsoft is pushing this month's update to the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.
UPDATE for March 19th: Windows 7 SP1 has been available for manual updating via Windows Update for a couple of years now. However, beginning on March 19th, Windows 7 SP1 will begin installing automatically if you've procrastinated on this major update. April 9th is the last day that Windows 7 (no service pack) will be supported by Microsoft so this automatic roll-out is an attempt to bring computers that don't have it installed "up to speed" so to speak. You can see Microsoft's blog post about this here.
There may also be non-security updates included this month for Microsoft software other than Windows. See the Non-Security Updates link below for details.
Patch Tuesday Problems
This blog post has become Grand Central Station for Patch Tuesday problems each month. While updates from Microsoft rarely result in widespread problems with Windows itself, they do frequently cause specific issues with software or drivers provided by other companies.
Please see How To Prevent Windows Updates From Crashing Your PC for a number of preventative measures you should take before applying these updates, including disabling fully automatic updates.
If your computer freezes during the installation of an update, see How To Recover From a Frozen Windows Update Installation for help.
If the updates installed but you're now experiencing a problem, see How To Fix Problems Caused by Windows Updates for advice on how to undo the damage.
See Windows Updates & Patch Tuesday FAQ for answers to other common questions, including "Does Microsoft test these updates before they push them out?" and "Why hasn't Microsoft fixed the problem that their update caused on my computer?!"
Automatically install: via Windows Update.
Manually install: via the individual Security Bulletins listed here. See Do I Have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows? if you're not sure which downloads to choose.
Details from Microsoft: Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for March 2013.
Non-Security Updates: New Non-Security Content for 2013.
Next Patch Tuesday: will be April 9, 2013.
A Note on the Comments Below:
I update this blog post for each Patch Tuesday by Microsoft so some of the comments left may be for previous Patch Tuesdays. You can tell which Patch Tuesday a comment is referring to by looking at the notation at the end of the comment. For example, comments addressing Patch Tuesday March 2013 will end with [PT: March 2013].
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