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• Windows turns table on Mac OS X, gains share

  Microsoft Windows climbed out of its rut last month to gain market share, Web measurement company NetApplications.com said today.

• Mystery malware nukes US city's Windows PCs

  Malicious code that mysteriously found its way onto an internal virtual print server took out nearly 800 computers used by the City of Norfolk, Virginia, last week.

• Windows Phone 7, Meego herald new start for smartphones

  In separate announcements from Barcelona today, three traditional powerhouses in computing and communications — Microsoft , Intel and Nokia — kick-started major revamps to their technology to adapt to a quick-changing smartphone and mobile device market that's increasingly dominated by Google and Apple.

• Ruby shining on Java, Windows and Mac OS

  Ruby, the popular open source dynamic language, is making headway not only on Java but also on the Windows and Mac platforms.

• Chrome buries Windows rivals in browser drag race

  Google's new Chrome 3.0 is the fastest of the top five Windows browsers, and beats every rival, including Apple's Safari, by comfortable margins, benchmark tests show.

• Now it's an XP fix that's 'infeasible'

  Microsoft late last week said it won't patch Windows XP for a pair of bugs it quashed September 8 in Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

• Microsoft patches 19 bugs in sweeping security update

  Microsoft today delivered nine security updates that patched 19 vulnerabilities in several crucial components of Windows, as well as in Windows Media Player, Outlook Express, IIS (Internet Information Server), Office and several other products.

• Microsoft rushes to fix IE kill-bit bypass attack

  Microsoft has been forced to issue emergency patches for its Windows operating system after researchers discovered a way to bypass a critical security mechanism in the Internet Explorer browser.

• Microsoft promises to stymie hackers with new patches

  Microsoft says it will deliver six security updates next Tuesday, including two for holes that hackers have been using for months to attack Windows and Internet Explorer (IE).

• Android an alternative to Windows in netbooks: Gartner

  Google's Android mobile phone software worked well on mini-laptops at the Computex Taipei 2009 electronics show and, backed by the strong Google brand, the mobile OS may be headed for prime time, two Gartner analysts say.

• Free and fair — and open source

  The Electoral Enrolment Centre (EEC) found itself cited by both sides in the debate over collapsed software licence negotiations between the government and Microsoft last month.

• Microsoft, analysts tell companies to kill Vista plans

  The Microsoft executive in charge of Windows urged some companies this week to dump Vista deployment plans and shift to Windows 7, the operating system the company has promised to ship in the fourth quarter.

• Upgrading to XP in Windows 7

  As promised, Microsoft launched the beta of "XP Mode," the Windows 7 compatibility add-on that runs Windows XP applications in a virtual machine.

• Microsoft confirms IE8 kill switch in Windows 7

  Microsoft Friday confirmed that users will be able to remove Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), as well as several other integrated applications, from Windows 7.

• 'Amazing' worm attack infects nine million PCs

  Calling the scope of the attack "amazing," security researchers at F-Secure say that 6.5 million Windows PCs have been infected by the "Downadup" worm in the last four days, and that nearly nine million have been compromised in just over two weeks.