"People love to hate Microsoft, and they are usually very techie types and early adopters that see flaws in engineering and strategy," says Sheri McLeish, an analyst covering information and knowledge management at Forrester Research. "Microsoft bundled IE with Windows, which added to its very long and dramatic history with the hubbub around Netscape, for example. But the browser market epitomizes the company's challenges as it looks to improve market share and faces a lot of dislike and distrust in terms of Microsoft's competitive nature."

Microsoft patches Excel, XP, Vista, W7, Virtual PC; leaves others holes alone

"Even though it is a slower month, it is still important to remember that these bulletins should be researched because next time it could be highly publicized vulnerabilities with IE," says Jason Miller, data and security team leader at Shavlik Technologies in St. Paul, Minn.