According to a posting on the Embedded Windows team's blog, the updates are now available for Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 with Feature Pack 2007 and Update Rollup 1.0 applied. The updates are cumulative, and include new releases of both the Desktop QFE Installer (DQI) Tool and the Component Database, Microsoft says.

The numbered security updates are detailed briefly in the posting as follows:

• KB 941568 -- Vulnerability in DirectShow Could Allow Remote Code Execution
  
• KB 943460 -- Vulnerability in Windows URI handling could allow Remote Code Execution
  
• KB 937894 -- Vulnerability in Message Queuing Service Could allow Denial of Service
  
• KB 941569 -- Vulnerability in Windows Media Format Could allow Remote Code Execution
  
• KB 942615 -- Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer
  
• KB 942763 -- December 2007 Cumulative Time Zone Update

Also available now on the ECE are the optional updates, which Microsoft says should only be installed after the above security updates. They are as follows:

• KB 944944 -- Four new time zone settings have been added to the Time Zone Setting component
  
• KB 944942 -- Additional Japanese characters have been added to MSGothic (sans serif) and MSMincho (serif) fonts, to make them compatible with the versions already supplied with Windows Vista
  
• KB 944943 -- This update will install Japanese printer components and files in the XP Embedded database for inclusion in runtime images
  
• KB 944945 -- The Windows Logon (Standard) component was missing mpnotify.exe (needed by Windows Logon to notify network providers of logon events) as a file resource, which this update now adds
  
• KB 943860 -- This update adds a popular Chinese font to XPe that was previously supplied only in some XP Professional editions

A subsequent posting on the Embedded Windows team's blog warns of a glitch in KB 942615, the cumulative security update for Internet Explorer listed above. In some cases, after the update has been applied Internet Explorer will hang when a website hosting considerable media content is visited, displaying a dialog that states "Internet Explorer has experienced a problem and needs to close." Despite this problem, Microsoft still recommends installing the update, and then implementing a further fix detailed in Knowledge Base article 946627.

Further information

You can read the Embedded Windows team's posting announcing the December 2007 updates, here, and the subsequent posting warning about the Internet Explorer glitch, here. An ECE user name and password is required to obtain the security updates, here, and optional updates, here.

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