Microsoft’s design for the "Browser Ballot" on Win7 is biased in favor of users installing Internet Explorer according to critics. A trade group and consumer organizations have asked for some changes to the ballot design.

A recent study indicates malware writers are almost as lazy as MS Office users, over 70 percent of attacks would be blocked if users installed MS06-07 for Word 2000, 2002, and 2003 or MS08-014 for Excel 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2007.

Microsoft has released a beta preview of a new homepage for MSN. While the author of this article seems to like the new look, he includes a list of items he’d like to see improved.

After losing the contract for services to Los Angeles, CA, Microsoft is cutting the prices it charges for the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and some of the individual services.

If you toss a coin often enough the odds of getting heads or tails work out about even. When Microsoft predicts which bugs in its software will be exploited, it’s right only about 27 percent of the time.

It hasn’t been two weeks yet and already Windows 7 is installed on 3.6 percent of net-connected computers though some analysts are pointing to the probability of a high number of pirated installations.

WinXP came in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. Same OS, built to run on different hardware. That was almost 6 years ago. Win7 is also being offered in 32 and 64-bit versions, but applications are still being offered mainly in 32-bit versions.

Security bulletin MS09-054 addressed memory corruption errors in Internet Explorer 5.01 and 6-8. Once applied, some users had difficulty viewing web pages using a mix of VBScript and JavaScript so Microsoft has issued Microsoft update 976749 to fix the problem.

The lack of software drivers for Vista was a problem. Now, if you have a Hewlett-Packard printer, you may have the same problem with Win7. HP is working on the problem though they warn that older devices may not be supported.

Having lasted for a year, Conficker is ranked as "successful" malware. Many of the 7 million infected machines are thought to be running illegal copies of Windows which are blocked from getting the necessary patches.