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Have a look on eBay for a cheap legit Office 2003. Otherwise, learn to live with and use 2007.

This sounds like pretty normal behavior after a browser is closed. Firefox does the same thing. Both browsers can consume as much as 200-300 MB of RAM under normal usage. I’m certain it’s nothing to be concerned about.

I’ve also wondered where the Flash updater springs up from, even though it appears harmless. Nothing identifiable as Adobe or Flash in the Services list, and a browser isn’t running when it happens (usually just after booting).

The biggest issue for me in all this is the labyrinth of links and options to all these privacy settings, and the fact many of them are set to automatic by default. Just checking my Live/Hotmail account now reveals a couple of (this time) innocuous status updates from Messenger months ago that I don’t care to have available to anyone. I deleted them, but why are they there by default?

I trudged through all the links and options, but how many other users bother to?

Thanks for the article. I had no idea all this personal info was being shared and out in the open.

You are right about the permissions pages… there’s a ridiculous amount of options and boxes to be unchecked. Most people wouldn’t bother going through them all (which is probably the idea). Would be nice if the default wasn’t “Everyone (public)” for many of the options, too.

Clicking on permissions for Photos or Files brings up an error page:

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: http://cid-be6ea5d9f03a05bd.skydrive.live.com/albums.aspx
Line Number 47, Column 184:

/* Copyright (C) 2009 Microsoft Corporation */function $c_TreatTile(a,e){a.style.display=e;var d=a.width,c=a.height,b=19;if(d>=c||c<b)a.height=b;if(d<c||d<b)a.width=b}

I also saw status updates from Live Messenger from months ago which I wouldn’t want saved for all to see.

Social networking gone crazy.