Microsoft re-issues PowerPoint patch

Microsoft late last week re-issued one of the patches it originally included in its August round of monthly security updates.

The MS08-051 patch was originally released to plug three critical vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office PowerPoint and Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer that could allow remote code execution and control of an affected if a user opens a specially crafted PowerPoint file.

In re-issuing the patch last week, the software giant said those IT security administrators who had manually downloaded the patch should install the latest version, which replaced the original.

But it said those who had applied the patch after downloading it using Windows Update or through an enterprise Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server need not reinstall MS08-051.

And those users who have updated other versions of Office are also not affected, it added.

The revised bulletin said the wrong versions of the original PowerPoint 2003 patch were posted to Microsoft's Download Centre.

“While these versions did protect against the vulnerabilities discussed in the bulletin, they lacked other important security and reliability updates,” said Microsoft.

And it also advised: “If you choose to not reinstall the update, you must manually set the registry key in order to block PowerPoint file types as a workaround.”

But this is the third time in the last two months that Microsoft has re-released a security related update and it is by no means an isolated case since Microsoft began its regular monthly round of security updates.

In June, Microsoft re-released a Windows Bluetooth patch citing unspecified “human issues” for the originally incorrect update. Last week, it re-issued a patch for a bug that prevented some administrators from using the WSUS patch management tool to deploy security updates.

The re-issued MS08-051 patch was one of a bumper crop of 11 security bulletins patching 26 bugs. This amounted to the most updates Microsoft has put out in a single month for the last eighteen months.

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