It seems as though is planning a fairly large "Patch Tuesday" next week. In a bulletin posted to TechNet earlier today, the software giant is expecting to release upwards of 9 patches for Windows including:
"8 Microsoft Security Bulletins affecting Microsoft Windows. The highest Maximum Severity rating for these is Critical. Some of these updates will require a restart. These updates will be detectable using the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) and the Enterprise Scanning Tool (EST)."
Microsoft is also planning to release a single patch for Exchange with a severity rating of "Important". In related Microsoft news, a new service article was issued today dealing with performance issues in Windows when running a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 CPU. The hotfix makes "changes to the kernel power manager... helping to calculate an increased target performance state." The patch is slated to be included in the next service pack for XP and as of today, can only be obtained by contacting Microsoft directly.