Microsoft plans to release four security bulletins next Tuesday as part of the September edition of its monthly Patch Tuesday update cycle.

The four slated updates - all described by Redmond as critical - covering remote code injection risks affecting Media Player, Windows Media Encoder, Office, and Windows. All supported version of Windows - including Vista - will need patching.

For now all we can say is the patch load for September is a fair bit less than the bumper crop covered by last month's update (11 bulletin - six covering critical flaws). A Media Player update, promised but delayed from last month due to last minute quality issues, is due to arrive next Tuesday instead.

Microsoft pre-alerts can be found here. ®

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