The largest spam attack ever tracked wound down Aug. 9 after delivering enough big, fat PDF files to increase total spam size 445 percent in one day, according to Postini, a hosted e-mail filtering company that’s been tracking the attack since it started Aug. 7.

Postini tracked a 53 percent jump in spam volume from the day before the attack started to the day it launched, according to Senior Marketing Manger Adam Swidler, in San Carlos, Calif.

Microsoft will try to convince U.S. regulators that vacant television airwaves can be used for wireless services without interfering with broadcast signals. The unused TV airwaves would be available for other services by early 2009, when broadcasters are due to switch from analog to digital signals.

Microsoft has completed the largest purchase in its history, sealing its $6 billion takeover of Internet advertising firm Aquantive. The software maker closed the deal on Friday, according to a filing Aquantive made Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the filing, Seattle-based Aquantive said that its board has resigned, as planned, and that it has notified Nasdaq to delist its stock, with the shares now converted into the right to receive a cash payout of $66.50 per share from Microsoft. Aquantive is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft.

WinPure, provider of affordable data cleansing and data deduplication software, have now added Microsoft Outlook compatibility to their software range. The new feature will allow the user to directly import Outlook contacts into ListCleaner or Clean & Match 2007, enabling users to clean, correct, standardize and deduplicate their contacts that are stored in Microsoft Outlook.

Nagarsoft announces the latest release of Direct Access 1.6, a new text replacement and application launch utility. With minimal system impact, Direct Access sits in the background ready to speed up your work by turning a few characters (defined abbreviations) into an instant shortcut to open applications, files, Web sites or to create and fill in emails–whatever the user requires done.

Additionally, it operates as a universal text expander and glossary allowing the user to type an abbreviation which expands automatically to type regularly used phrases such as a Web address, a company name or any text of your choice.

Microsoft will release nine sets of security patches next week, including six critical updates for Windows, Office, Internet Explorer and its Visual Basic development software.

The updates will come as part of Microsoft’s regular monthly security patch process, and will be made available to customers late Tuesday morning.

Microsoft has lost the first round in a legal battle over whether its Windows Vista Capable and Express Upgrade programs were deceptive and led consumers to buy PCs that could only run the most basic version of the operating system.

The case was brought against the software giant, based in Redmond, Wash., by lead plaintiff Dianne Kelley of Camano Island, Wash. Kelley bought a new PC in November 2006 that had a sticker labeled "Windows Vista Capable" affixed to it.

A publisher of nude-model photography is suing Microsoft for putting links and images of the company’s content in search results taken from other Web sites that are illegally reproducing the material.

The company, Perfect 10, previously lost a similar suit seeking injunctions against Google and Amazon.com and its subsidiary search engine, A9.com, over alleged copyright infringement, but Perfect 10 is appealing that decision.

The latest suit, filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, alleges that Microsoft’s MSN image search feature creates unauthorized thumbnails of content owned by Perfect 10 and includes links to see full-size versions of the images for free.

Microsoft has begun what appears to be an open beta test of the Windows Live SkyDrive service. This is a Web-based file storage and sharing system that gives you 500MB of free online storage. Those following the service’s development probably know it by its former name, Windows Live Folders.

The release of Office 2007 marked Microsoft’s first major default file shift since Office 97. This time around, Microsoft is offering a compatibility add-in that allows users of older versions of Office to read, edit and save word processor, spreadsheet and presentation documents in the Open XML formats new to Office 2007. Based on tests of the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, Microsoft has done well in keeping its upward-compatibility promises.

The file conversion pack, released on June 18, is a free 27.5MB download for users of Office 2000, XP and 2003. During tests, the pack enabled seamless conversion between earlier and later versions of Office.