Microsoft’s first tip for start-ups wanting to work with the software maker: don’t expect it to give you money. Microsoft–particularly its MSN group–has been on an acquisition spree, but said it typically doesn’t buy companies that it finds through its emerging business team. Rarer still is a minority investment from Microsoft, said Dan’l Lewin, the corporate vice president heading up business development for Microsoft’s .Net group.

Yahoo was set to unveil a new Really Simple Syndication feed alert service and integration of RSS feeds into its new Yahoo Mail beta, making the company the first to offer RSS in a major Web-based email system. The new RSS feed alert service will allow people to receive alerts via email, instant message or SMS message, just as they currently can receive alerts for news stories about a specified topic, stock moves and game scores.

Email spammers are aggressive as ever, but Internet providers are getting better at blocking junk messages before they reach users’ inboxes, according to a U.S. Federal Trade Commission study released Monday. The FTC found that spammers continue to "scrape" email addresses from the Web using automated programs that look for the telltale "@" sign. But up to 96 percent of those messages were blocked by the two Web-based email providers used by the FTC in its test. The FTC did not say which providers it used in its study.

The second beta of Windows Vista will not come until next year, Microsoft said Tuesday. The software maker did not give a time frame for the release of Beta 2 of the operating system, and said only that it would have more to say next year. Microsoft had not said when Beta 2 will come, but some had expected it might come in December or January. Microsoft did say it still plans to release the final version of Vista in the second half of next year.

As promised, Microsoft has opened up the test for its forthcoming OneCare Live security subscription product to the general public. OneCare marks Microsoft’s long-anticipated entry into the consumer antivirus market, which has been the domain of specialized vendors such as Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro. Microsoft unveiled its plans for OneCare in May. The product is now available for testing by anyone with a U.S. English version of Windows XP with Service Pack 2, a Microsoft representative said Tuesday. Final release is expected in 2006.

The number of worms that targeted instant-messaging services hit 62 in November, up 226 percent from October and hitting a new record, Akonix Systems said Tuesday. Of the worms, 58 were variants of previous pests, and four were new. In the same month, a total of 14 attacks hit peer-to-peer networks, such as Kazaa and eDonkey, according to Akonix, which sells security software and appliances.

Computer code posted Tuesday can crash vulnerable Windows machines by exploiting a "critical" Windows flaw disclosed by Microsoft earlier this month. The exploit code takes advantage of a flaw in the way Windows handles certain graphics files. Microsoft provided a patch in November with security bulletin MS05-053 and warned that the vulnerability could create an opening for spyware and Trojan horse attacks.

The newest version of Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net, makes it much easier for developers to deploy .Net programs. The Mono Project, which is sponsored by Novell, provides the software needed to run and develop Microsoft .Net client and server applications on Unix, Solaris, Linux, and several other operating systems. Microsoft .Net runs only on Windows platforms.

Among the challenges that enterprise administrators face when attempting to properly lock down the Windows machines in their care, managing the laundry list of operating system functions that require elevated privileges is a chore that looms large. Making matters even worse are Windows’ anemic facilities for allowing rights-limited users who are out of reach of IT support to access these functions, without granting them full administrative rights.

The governor’s office of Massachusetts said Microsoft’s effort to standardize Office document formats could meet the commonwealth’s procurement guidelines. The state is "optimistic" that Microsoft’s Office Open XML document formats will meet the standard for an "open format" set by Massachusetts, according to a statement issued Wednesday by Gov. Mitt Romney.