Excel remains one of the most popular and useful products developed by Microsoft, and is a common sight in most offices and even educational institutions. Microsoft released a number of fixes and security updates for Excel in October 2019. Here’s a quick look at whats new Microsoft Excel, October 2019 patches for Excel 2016 as well as the 2013 and 2010 versions.

A Series of Security Updates

The key update for Excel 2016 was a security update that prevents a remote code execution issue. The vulnerability occurred if the software handled objects in memory incorrectly. It is important that you install this update if you have Excel 2016, because if you open a malicious Excel file the vulnerability could be used to take control of your computer.

Microsoft provides information about the vulnerability in the CVE-2019-1327 and CVE-2019-1331 information sheets on the support website.

The two vulnerabilities listed above also apply to Excel 2013 andto Excel 2010.

The security update is free of charge to everyone with an activated version of Excel or Microsoft Office. You will need to have the correct release and service pack installed in order to take advantage of the update.

Updates for Desktop Office

Microsoft emphasizes that these updates are for the desktop versions of Office, not the Click-to-Run versions. Users of Office 365 do not need to rush to install updates since the cloud service handles this for them.

Important Updates to Protect Your Computer

If you were hoping for exciting new features in the latest patch, then this might not be the most joyful “whats new Microsoft Excel October 2019” post. However, it is still important that you install the patch. It’s one of a large list of updates that Microsoft has made available as a part of Patch Tuesday. There’s 1 advisory update, and updates for 59 different vulnerabilities of which eight are classed as Critical.

How to Get the Latest Updates

These vulnerability updates are available using Microsoft Update, Microsoft Download Center or the Microsoft Update Catalog.

If you are a home user, then Microsoft Update is the best choice. Many users have automatic updating enabled and will have the update installed automatically via this tool.

If you are an enterprise user who wants to install the update on a number of machines, then you can download the update from the Microsoft Update Catalog or the Microsoft Download Center and deploy it to your machines using your chosen management tool.

There are x86 and x64 versions of the update, be sure to choose the correct version. The updates are over 100MB in size so we recommend you do not use a metered Internet connection to download them, to avoid the risk of extra charges.

Note that there are other updates for Outlook, PowerPoint, Skype for Business and Word 2016 as well as for Office 2013, Outlook 2013, Office 2010 and Outlook 2010. You should download and install these at the same time as your updates for Excel if you have the whole suite installed on your computer.