As part of Microsoft Corp.’s commitment to education, the company is introducing a promotion inviting students who are actively enrolled at educational institutions and have a valid e-mail address from the institution to purchase Microsoft® Office Ultimate 2007 at a student price of $59.95 (U.S.). “The Ultimate Steal” promotion will run in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States starting today and in France, Italy and Spain starting Sept. 20, 2007. The promotion will end April 30, 2008.

Students can find program details and see if they’re eligible at http://www.theultimatesteal.com

A fix for some significant problems in many of Intel’s most recent processors has been quietly released — by whom is not clear. Patches are available on Microsoft’s site. Affected processors include Core 2 Duo E4000/E6000, Core 2 Quad Q6600, Core 2 Xtreme X6800, XC6700, and XC6800. Details on just what has been fixed are scanty (it’s called a ‘reliability update’), however, it’s probably more important than either Intel or Microsoft is openly admitting.

The patch is available here.

Microsoft recently addressed a vulnerability with Windows Animated Cursor handling by releasing a patch. This patch causes a problem in Windows XP SP2 producing an error message on start up about an ‘Illegal System DLL Relocation’. More information on this error is available here.

The good news is there is already a fix for this problem. The patch, KB935448, can be downloaded from here.

Install this update to resolve an issue where the Realtek HD Audio Control Panel may not start after you install security update KB925902 (MS07-017) and security update KB928843 (MS07-008). After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

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