OutlookPower Mike Morriss seems to lose his email. Once he has read a message, it just disappears! In this helpful article, Contributing Editor Francine Otterson helps Mike get his missing mail back.

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A European fine on Microsoft will have no effect on the launch of Vista, its next-generation Windows operating system, the U.S. software giant’s Japan unit said on Thursday. "I don’t think this has any impact on the teams and the efforts that are going forward to that launch," Microsoft Japan President Darren Huston told a news conference. "We are still committed to the existing plan of record." Microsoft plans to release Vista to business customers in November before a wider general release by January.

Researchers at Microsoft have developed a tool to scrub search engines of major Web sites that pollute search results and ultimately help clean the Web of spam. Called Strider Search Defender, the tool is designed to dig out Web pages that are a front for spam Web sites, according to a paper published by Microsoft researchers on Thursday. These Web pages typically reside on blogging sites and other services that provide free Web space, the researchers said.

Like a train wreck that happens in slow motion, the end-of-life of Windows 98–with yesterday’s termination of all support–has been so long in coming that people may have failed to take it seriously. For more than a few Windows users, though, this represents a serious disruption, no matter how obsolete the core design of that operating system might be.

Only a day after Microsoft’s monthly patch day, a new security hole in Microsoft Office is being exploited in cyberattacks. These attacks take advantage of a previously unknown vulnerability in PowerPoint for which no patch is available, security experts at Symantec said in an alert issued Wednesday. The flaw might affect Microsoft Office in general, according to the alert. Microsoft is investigating the issue, it said in an emailed statement Thursday.

Microsoft is on track to resolve its fight with European Union regulators over its compliance with a 2004 antitrust ruling, the software company’s general counsel said on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the European Commission fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros ($357.3 million) for not providing adequate technical documentation to rival server software makers, a stipulation of its antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004. The watchdog also warned that failure to provide acceptable documentation would result in bigger fines in the future.

A day after Microsoft shipped a mega-patch to cover eight Excel vulnerabilities, security researchers warn that at least two critical flaws affecting users of the spreadsheet program remain unpatched. Proof-of-concept exploit code for both vulnerabilities has been published on the Internet and, in the absence of patches, Microsoft is strongly urging customers to avoid accepting and opening files from untrusted sources. One of the bugs, rated "highly critical" by Secunia, a security information aggregator based in Copenhagen, Denmark, is actually a code execution hole in Windows that is exploitable via Excel.

You know we bring you all the latest news, all the important happenings in the tech world. Well, what could be more important than this? Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are back. Yep. Tayla and that freak Ronin, Samantha Carter and that dude from Farscape. Plus, MacGyver might be back. Maybe we’ll even luck out and the chick who played Aeryn Sun will be back full time. Who knew she could be funny? For you geeks out there (and, if you’re reading this, that means you, bucko), go program your Tivo before it gets too late. It’s all happening tonight (SciFriday) on the Sci Fi network. Does anything else matter? Really, next to Stargate being back, does anything else matter? Yeah, okay, it could have been BSG (whimper)…

Nine months after announcing they would make their instant messaging services interoperate, Yahoo and Microsoft have done it. The companies are set to release on Thursday a limited beta test of a service that will enable users of Windows Live Messenger (the next generation of MSN Messenger) and Yahoo Messenger with Voice to connect with each other.

Industry trade groups weighed in on the European Commission’s decision to levy a historic $357 million antitrust fine against Microsoft. The organizations fell into two camps in their opinion of the penalty imposed on Microsoft for noncompliance with the Commission’s 2004 antitrust order to share and license protocol information with rivals. One side said the move will discourage U.S. businesses in Europe, while the other said it sets a precedent that will help smaller software companies.