Welcome to Microsoft Office Patch Tuesday for May 2016

In late March, Microsoft alerted customers to its ever-expanding monthly patch docket to communicate that it had unilaterally chosen the very first Tuesday of each month to deliver Office updates. The very first Office Patch Tuesday happened on April 5^th, 2016. How did that go for you all?

Office Patch Tuesday is a gaggle of bug fixes that aren’t designed to repair security holes. Those are still designated for the 2^nd Tuesday of each month – even though there’s usually Office updates included.

Essentially, Microsoft customers can now expect to be testing and deploying patches all month long now. As I outlined in The Patch Whenever Conundrum, the new schedule goes something like this…

But, alas, hearing from commenters over the last couple months (and over the last several months), each time Microsoft adds a new wrinkle to its patching schedule, it causes customers to respond by pushing patching aside even longer. What was intended to help customers keep current and protected has instead overwhelmed them to the point of not caring anymore. They get their environment to a practical, secure and working state and just sit.

Customers that choose to update through Microsoft’s automated, cloud-based Office 365 updaters, Office Patch Tuesday doesn’t matter. It’s only those customers that choose to keep control over updates by deploying them only once tested. Microsoft, of course, would prefer everyone to accept their updating services, but businesses just can’t due to policy and memories of being bitten too many times by botched updates.

For those customers who deploy updates manually, Microsoft has released a slew of new updates for Office products. Here’s what’s available today (May the 4^th be with you!):

Office 2007

Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter (KB3115110)

Office 2010

Definition Update for Microsoft Office 2010 (KB3115129)

Update for Microsoft Outlook 2010 (KB3115127)

Update for Microsoft Project 2010 (KB3115001)

Office 2013

Update for Microsoft Excel 2013 (KB3115035)

Update for Microsoft OneDrive for Business (KB3115039)

Update for Microsoft InfoPath 2013 (KB3114946)

Update for Microsoft InfoPath 2013 (KB3114818)

Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB3114813)

Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB3114939)

Definition Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB3115032)

Update for Microsoft Project 2013 (KB3115040)

Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB3085577)

Update for Microsoft Office 2013 (KB3085486)

Update for Microsoft Outlook 2013 (KB3115031)

Office 2016

Update for Microsoft Access 2016 (KB3114966)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3114378)

Update for Microsoft Excel 2016 (KB3115090)

Update for Microsoft OneDrive for Business (KB3115104)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 Language Interface Pack (KB3115095)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3115096)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3115084)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3115091)

Definition Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3115085)

Update for Microsoft Outlook 2016 (KB3115101)

Update for Microsoft PowerPoint 2016 (KB3115089)

Update for Microsoft Project 2016 (KB3115105)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3115100)

Update for Microsoft Office 2016 (KB3114369)