Microsoft on Friday finally updated Flash on Windows 8 to protect IE10 users from attacks that may have started months ago.
More than a week earlier, Microsoft had backed out from an earlier position that declared it wouldn’t patch Flash until later October. Alternatively, the company assured to update the media player “shortly.”
Microsoft, not Adobe, is creditworthy for patching Flash Player in Windows 8 because the company mimicked Google’s Chrome by constructing the software into IE10, the new OS browser. Microsoft declared their descision in late May, when its lead IE executive, Dean Hachamovitch, enounced, “By updating Flash through Windows Update, like IE, we make security more convenient for customers.”
Friday’s Flash update will be provided to Windows 8 RTM, and to the concluding public beta, Windows 8 Release Preview. That sneak peak, which users downloaded for free, does not expire until Jan. 31, 2013.
So far during 2012, Adobe has published seven Flash updates: One in February; two in March; one each in May and June; and two in August. If Adobe is embracing a quarterly patch method for Flash Player, they’ve kept that covert.