Microsoft is expanding the detail available in its service to notify people of upcoming security fixes, the company said yesterday.

On the first Thursday of each month, Microsoft's Advance Notification Service (ANS) informs customers signed up some particulars of patches the company issues the following Tuesday.

Currently, Microsoft shares some aggregate information about the patches -- for example, how many are severe -- but beginning June 7, it will offer more information for each of the bulletins in the notification, according to Microsoft's Security Response Center blog.

Specifically, Microsoft will share for each vulnerability bulletin its maximum severity, its impact, information on detection and the software it affects. The descriptions will be stripped-down versions of the full bulletins, and once those full details are released on the Tuesday, the descriptions will be updated to include all the information, Microsoft said.

In addition, Microsoft is updating the layout of its security bulletins to make them more useful, and has posted an example online. Anyone can sign up for the alert service at Microsoft's ANS subscription site.