Patch Tuesday for July has arrived, and with it Microsoft has fixed a host of problems plaguing Windows and Office. The updates span six patches, and they address a total of eleven flaws. Of those six updates, three achieved the lofty "critical" rating.

Fixes were provided for Excel, Publisher, Active Directory in Server 2000 and Server 2003, .NET, IIS, Vista and XP. The Vista flaw addressed in this update is for the built in firewall, though it was limited in nature and not one of the critical updates. Of the critical updates however, the one that affects .NET affects anyone using 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0, which encompasses a lot. If you aren't getting automatic updates, make sure to stay updated.