The 60-Second Microsoft Roundup: Microsoft Versus Google, #WindowsRage and More

It has been a fairly calm week for those working in the Redmond campus, even though Microsoft has struggled to show everyone that its very own services are better than Google’s with several new direct attacks aimed at the Mountain View-based search giant.

New Steam data revealed that Windows 8 finally managed to overtake Mac OS X on Monday, while Windows XP continued its decline as Microsoft struggled to kill it.

A former Microsoft exec confirmed that he was planning to launch a premium marijuana business, while some new statistics revealed that Internet Explorer 6 was still a fairly popular browser.

Microsoft officially unveiled the new MSN Money Now service on Tuesday, while a few hours later, the company launched a new attack on Google with a holiday version of the Bing It On campaign.

Security company Sophos said that Windows was no longer cybercriminals’ number one target, while an analyst explained that Surface demand underwhelmed expectations.

An interesting report claiming that Microsoft and Yahoo had secretly negotiated a “huge deal” emerged on Wednesday, while the software giant officially made the Socl social network open for everyone a few hours later.

Dropbox developers confirmed that a Windows 8 version of their software was going to hit the market soon, while Microsoft attacked Google once again.

On Thursday, the #DroidRage Twitter campaign started by Microsoft backfired and turned into #WindowsRage, as plenty of users turned against the software giant and criticized it for its unfair tactic to attract more users.

An MIT Professor blasted Windows 8 by saying that it was a Christmas gift for someone you hate, while a former Windows Vista security expert decided to join Apple.

Finally, on Friday, Microsoft announced that it would release a total of seven updates for Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday cycle, while sources familiar with the matter hinted that Facebook wanted to purchase Microsoft’s Atlas Solutions.

A Wall Street firm slammed a report hinting at poor Windows 8 sales, while Microsoft decided to pull the plug on Silverlight.net.

Don’t forget that we’ve also published some pretty helpful tutorials, including the Windows 8 File Explorer keyboard shortcuts and step-by-step instructions on how to change the output folder for Windows 8 screenshots, how to add shutdown and restart options to Windows 8’s right click and how to create shutdown and reboot tiles on the Start Screen.