Windows

McAfee and Symantec could be affected as Microsoft moves to provide free antivirus software. If the software, code-named Morro, successfully protects against viruses, analysts said, it could mean an exodus from well-known security brands.

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a security offering focused on protecting against malware. The software giant is addressing what it sees as a growing need for a security solution that meets the unique needs of emerging markets and smaller PC form factors.

[Q] I'm getting a new computer for my family and want software to back up whatever we put on it. What's the difference between file-based backup and image-based backup software?

As the No. 3 executive at Microsoft, Paul Maritz presided over the company's Windows juggernaut, turned aside threats from Netscape and Sun Microsystems, and pressed the company to embrace the Internet. Now, the longtime software executive is looking down Microsoft's barrel from the other end, trying to help his new employer, VMware, triumph where past Microsoft competitors fell short.

Microsoft on Tuesday patched four vulnerabilities in two security updates for Windows and Microsoft Office. Compared to recent Patch Tuesdays, November is a light month and Microsoft did some housecleaning by fixing a critical bug disclosed nearly two years ago.

MS08-069 is the most serious of the November updates, fixing three individual flaws in Microsoft XML Core Services. This vulnerability went public more than 22 months ago. The other update, MS-08-068, is rated important and fixes a flaw in the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.

An update for the AVG 8 antivirus software for Windows 2000, XP and Vista released Saturday mistakenly warned that the Windows system file user32.dll was a Trojan horse. The problem affected the Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish versions.

AVG Technologies immediately corrected the problem for both free and paid versions of its software. If users acted on the update's warning, the user32.dll file was deleted, leaving Windows XP systems endlessly rebooting or unable to reboot.

Parallels has unleashed the latest version of its desktop virtualization technology for the Mac, which already enables more than 1.5 million users to run Windows, Linux and other operating systems inside Mac OS X. Called Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac, the new platform is designed to perform computing tasks at speeds up to 50 percent faster than earlier versions.

Microsoft showed off new Windows 7 innovations at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this week. The focus was how the upcoming version of Microsoft's flagship product will make it easier for hardware partners to create new experiences for Windows PC customers.

Windows senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan rallied hardware partners, encouraging them to begin testing their current products and building new products on the application programming interface (API).

Reach into your pockets after a business trip. You've got business cards, crumpled receipts and perhaps other scraps of paper with information needed for databases, expense reports and tax time. Dealing with this mess of paper is as much fun as visiting the dentist.

The new NeatDesk desktop scanner I've been testing can help you through this drill. It combines a speedy sheet-fed scanner with digital filing-system software called NeatWorks 4.0 that neatly sorts and organizes the information. For now, the scanner works with Windows only; a Mac version is expected in 2009.

Security research firm Sophos on Wednesday discovered attackers have launched their own presidential campaign. Attempting to exploit President-elect Barack Obama's historic victory, the spam attack sends e-mails with the subject line "Obama win preferred in world poll" and a return address of news@president.com.

Clicking a link in the e-mail takes victims to a Web page that insists on downloading Adobe Flash 9 to view a video of the first African-American president's "amazing speech." The scam is this: It's not really Flash. It's dangerous malware.

It's time for my annual fall PC buyer's guide. As always, this guide covers what average consumers doing typical tasks should look for in a desktop or laptop PC. That excludes heavy-duty gamers, corporate buyers, techies or enthusiasts.

But this autumn, we find ourselves in a serious global economic slowdown. So I will focus this edition of the guide on how folks whose PC budgets have shrunk can still get something adequate for light use.