A surprise announcement yesterday afternoon rattled Microsoft customers: Patch Tuesday is officially being delayed for a month.

Microsoft is being close-mouthed. A curt, unsigned post on the Microsoft Security Resource Center TechNet blog simply states: “UPDATE: 2/15/17: We will deliver updates as part of the planned March Update Tuesday, March 14, 2017.”

Microsoft started documenting its security patches with Security Bulletins in 1998, but the patches arrived at random. Steve Ballmer announced the Patch Tuesday protocol on Oct. 9, 2003 to “reduce the burden on IT administrators by adding a level of increased predictability and manageability.” Starting with MS03-041, security patches were generally held until the second — sometimes third or fourth — Tuesday of the month.

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