About 2 weeks to the day after the formal release of Win8 for public sale, Microsoft has announced the first "Critical" Patch for it.

Some of the "reporters" seem astonished, but none of the ones I've seen have a very good description of precisely what is being patched.

It has been fairly common for people to take a while to try out new things before proceding to setup of their automatic updates and possibly for some to get around to getting antimalware in place and set up properly.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA, and release of a significant patch so soon after release is just a good demonstration of why. Just remember that your "new" OS probably was installed on your "new" machine several months ago.

Microsoft releases new patches monthly, on a schedule, and "Patch Tuesday" this month happens to come soon after the release for sale. Machines being sold now likely were built some time ago, and it's unlikely that merchants have gone through their stock or done point of sale setup required to make sure everything is up to date when it goes out the door.

Just don't procrastinate about hooking up for automatic updates if you have something new - (on Win8, that's assuming you can find the Microsoft Update button, of course; but you need to ask someone if you have trouble with that). And don't put off getting AV in place, even if you just use Microsoft's stuff temporarily while you arrange for something more sophisticated if that's your plan.

John