Microsoft Thursday said it will deliver a dozen security updates next week to fix critical vulnerabilities in Windows, Office, Internet Explorer (IE) and the media player bundled with Vista.

Of the 12 updates it sketched out in the advance notification issued Thursday morning, Microsoft pegged seven as "critical," its highest threat rating. The remaining five were labeled "important," the second-highest ranking.

"We almost have a baker's dozen," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. "What struck me was the complete depth of Microsoft software that the updates will touch this month."

As is its practice, Microsoft divulged little information about each update, limiting the disclosure to naming the affected software and spelling out in only general terms the nature of the bugs.

Four of the seven critical updates will patch Office, with three of those aimed at Access, Excel and PowerPoint. Another update, downgraded to important, will patch one or more bugs in Word, the suite's word processor.

The other critical updates will fix unspecified flaws in Windows, IE and Media Player 11, the edition included with Windows Vista.

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