In an advance notice published late Friday, Microsoft announced that it will release two out-of-band software updates on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, ahead of its regularly scheduled updates on August 11, 2009. The patches will include a critical fix for Internet Explorer as well as a related moderate Visual Studio patch.

"While we can't go into specifics about the issue prior to release, we can say that the Visual Studio bulletin will address an issue that can affect certain types of applications," says Mike Reavey, group manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center.

More information can be found on Microsoft's advance notification.