Letter To 0patch Users (February 10, 2020)

Subject: 0patch - What you need to know about Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 security micropatches


Dear 0patch user,

Thank you for putting your trust in 0patch to supply your computers with security micropatches. Tomorrow is the first Patch Tuesday when Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems that aren't registered for Microsoft's Extended Security Updates will not receive official Windows security patches, and instead depend on us to provide security micropatches for the most critical vulnerabilities.

We'd like to set your expectations and help you stay well-informed during our journey.

Whenever we become aware of a critical vulnerability affecting Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 (whether through Microsoft issuing a patch for it, or from any other source), we'll create an article for that vulnerability on our Support site (https://0patch.zendesk.com) that will provide information such as:

    - CVE ID
    - Our own risk assessment (with explanation)
    - Status of our micropatch (e.g., "in development", "waiting for test case", "issued")
    - Possible (and reported) side effects of our micropatch
    - Workarounds (for when micropatch is not available, or if you don't want to apply it)
    - Frequently asked questions
    - Links to our own and external articles related to this issue
    - Procedure for testing our micropatch (optionally)
    - Credits to people helping us with the micropatch

We will continually update these articles as new information gets available.

We will also start sending Patch Tuesday updates and alerts about issued micropatches to "0patch News" mailing list (newsletter) so we highly recommend you subscribe to it to know which vulnerabilities we have micropatched and whether we recommend applying any workarounds for issues we can't (yet) micropatch.

To subscribe to "0patch News", visit https://0patch.com/contact.html, provide your email address to the form on the right side, tick the "0patch Newsletter" box and press Subscribe.

We will make our best effort to provide users will timely, accurate, and actionable information for keeping their Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 systems as secure as possible.

Thank you again,

Mitja Kolsek
0patch co-founder