It's a good thing most of use have long since moved on from dial-up, because come Tuesday, Microsoft said it will send out its largest-ever number of security updates to fix and plug holes in every version of Windows, including the first update for Windows 7 RTM. Internet Explorer, Office, SQL Server, Forefront Security client, and some developer tools will also be in the mix.

"Thirteen is not a lucky number," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, in response to the monster update scheduled for October 13. "They've been a busy bunch at Microsoft, that's for sure."

Microsoft will ship 13 updates in all next week, eight of them considered critical. That's enough to break the record of 12 updates shipped in February 2007 and October 2008.

Five of the updates will affect Windows 7, even though the OS has yet to formally launch. However, enterprises with volume licenses, party hosts, and others have been able to obtain and run the finalized the OS for awhile now.