Microsoft fixed eight flaws in Windows and Office Tuesday, but passed on patching one Windows component because it cannot be automatically updated.

The eight bugs patched today were far from the near-record 26 that Microsoft fixed last month when it delivered 13 security updates. Both of Tuesday's bulletins were ranked "important," the second-highest rating in Microsoft's four-step severity scoring system, even though the company acknowledged that the eight vulnerabilities could be used to completely compromise a Windows PC.

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Although security experts recommended that users deploy the Office fix first, several argued today that the Windows update was more interesting because Microsoft declined to patch one of the two pieces of involved software.

MS10-016 fixes a single flaw in Windows Movie Maker, a consumer-grade video editor bundled with Windows Vista, and available as a separate download for users of Windows XP and Windows 7 . Hackers could exploit the bug and hijack the PC by duping users into opening a malicious Movie Maker project file, which uses the ".mswmm" file extension.

While Microsoft patched Movie Maker, it passed over Producer 2003, a downloadable add-on for PowerPoint 2002 and PowerPoint 2003 that allows those presentation makers to play .mswmm files.

Critic says Windows 7 users should block the optional KB971033 update, which would periodically 'phone home' to re-validate the copy of the OS

The update to Windows Activation Technologies (WAT), the anti-counterfeit program formerly known as Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), has been slammed by critics, including the Internet advocate who blasted Microsoft in 2006 over the daily "phone home" habits of WGA running on Windows XP.

Users whose PCs have already downloaded and installed the WAT update can uninstall it from the Control Panel. The uninstall option is also new for Microsoft's anti-piracy software; in the past, once installed, WGA updates could not be removed.

The pre-release versions of Windows 7 will go through two phases on their way to expiration. The operating systems will not cut off testers at once, but, instead, transition into a pre-expiration period where the platform will start shutting down at two-hour intervals. Only at the end of the first phase on the road to expiration will Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 and Windows 7 Release Candidate Build 7100 actually switch off, leaving testers in the dark. The first one to go will be, of course, Windows 7 Beta. Microsoft has, in fact, already started sending out emails to all participants in the Customer Technology Preview program warning of the imminent expiration of Build 7000