Microsoft warned system administrators on Thursday to prepared for nearly a dozen fixes, some critical, to its operating system, Office productivity suite and .Net framework.

The software giant published its Security Bulletin Advance Notification on Thursday, saying that the company plans to release on Tuesday six patches for Windows (including some critical issues), four patches for Office (also including some critical issues), and a single patch for its .Net framework. Each class of updates will likely require a restart, the company stated.

It's likely that Microsoft will fix two serious zero-day flaws that online attackers have been using to compromise victims' computers. The attacks prompted third-party developers to release their own patches for the security issues last week.

Since November 2004, Microsoft has given system administrators advance warning of coming patches, which have typically been scheduled for release on the second Tuesday of every month, a practice instituted in October 2003.