Many companies wait for the first service pack to be issued before they start installing a new version of Windows. Now that rumors of Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 have started, companies may relax and start their deployments.

Flash Player 6, the version bundled with WinXP, contains multiple bugs. Since Adobe discontinued support for Flash Player 6 in 2006, Microsoft is urging people to upgrade to a newer version of Flash Player.

Internet Explorer has been losing its market for some time. Now people are suggesting it’s time for Microsoft to get out of the browser business and concentrate on other things.

Microsoft’s anti-piracy program, is prone to giving false positives and annoying messages. If you’re tired of the nag, this wiki has some instructions on shutting it off.

Active Directory does a lot, but… Windows administrators are hoping Microsoft will build some better tools into the next release. This article discusses some of the add-on tools, such as ADFS and PowerShell, available to help manage Active Directory.

Office 2010 is expected to sell for about $280 and is probably no less greedy for PC resources than its predecessors. Alternatives include: OpenOffice, which is free; SoftMaker, which sells for about $80; and Zoho, an internet application which is free for up to 10 users.

Many of the "anti-spyware" programs offered on the internet not only don’t protect your PC, they actively infect it. This new site, SpywareBlockers.us.com, provides information to help you find real, effective, anti-spyware.

Messaging Architects announced the release of M+Archive 2009.2, a policy-based enterprise-class email retention and eDiscovery solution. The new version of M+Archive simplifies email management operations and offers an enhanced migration toolkit to facilitate migration.

If you own an internet cafe, you can now get a real license from Microsoft to legally rent out those PCs. The change was introduced to the Rental Rights license for Office 2007 and Windows.

This is the first in a three-part discussion of security in Windows 7. This article covers the starting places including User Account Control, BitLocker, and Virtual Service Account. The future articles will cover other features.