Microsoft

The overwhelming majority of today's software installation routines is done without ever touching a physical media like a DVD or a CDROM, so much so that the number of devices actually shipped without an optical drive appears to be increasing.

It is therefore not surprising that computer users have been accustomed with the idea of "downloading" software and applications rather than installing them from a pressed CDROM. It is also not surprising that so many of us are looking for ways to download Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft.

Microsoft said on Tuesday that a blogging application posted to its MSN China site did in fact copy code from a rival.

Microblogging site Plurk lashed out at Microsoft on Monday saying that the Juku application stole its user interface and code. Microsoft said on Monday that it was investigating the matter and suspended the Juku service on Monday night.

Cybercriminals are lazy. Given the choice between adapting their malicious software to a new operating system or focusing on users who haven't made the switch, they'll inevitably choose the path of least resistance, according to a new report from Finnish security firm F-Secure.

A new scareware package tries to sell bogus antivirus software to its victims using an apparent endorsement of the software by Microsoft.

A variant of the infection that urges users to buy DefenceLab antivirus software now also directs them to a Microsoft support page where a display describes a new threat and recommends using DefenceLab antivirus to clear it and protect against it.

Microsoft has fixed a problem in Office 2003 that prevented the software from opening documents saved using its access control technology.

The company warned late Friday that Office 2003 would not be able to open documents that had been protected with its Rights Management Services (RMS) beyond that day until Microsoft issued an update, even if users were authorized to open the document.

A start-up says that a microblogging service recently launched by Microsoft in China "rips off" its user interface and also contains a huge percentage of similar code. Plurk, which runs a microblogging service of its own, says more than 80 percent of the code for Microsoft's Juku service appears to be lifted from its service.

"Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code, design, and UI elements is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world," Plurk said on its company blog.

When you're a technology mongrel like Microsoft, challenges are constant -- and 2009 was chock full of them. It was a tumultuous year that saw the software giant's first widespread layoffs and its worst quarterly revenue earnings ever.

Microsoft launched Windows 7 in late October to much fanfare. But, just like with previous Windows upgrades, complaints about bugs have already started rolling in.

A whopping 31% of clients have reported problems with upgrading to Windows 7, according to a recent survey of more than 100,000 customers conducted by consumer helpdesk firm iYogi.

Microsoft may not have hustled as fast as researchers thought when the company patched a zero-day bug in Internet Explorer (IE) just 18 days after exploit code went public.

According to VeriSign iDefense, Microsoft had information about the browser bug nearly six months before the researcher dubbed "K4mr4n" posted attack code to the Bugtraq security mailing list on Nov. 20.

iDefense's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), one of the two best-known bug bounty programs, reported the vulnerability to Microsoft on June 9, 2009, iDefense noted in an advisory published Wednesday.

Microsoft has open sourced the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (WUDT) by releasing it under the GPLv2 license. The code is now available on CodePlex, Microsoft's Open Source software project hosting repository, over at wudt.codeplex.com. The actual installer for the tool is now again available for download at the Microsoft Store (2.59MB).