Windows Media Player 11 is the latest version and brings many new features, including a much better interface, an improved ability to cope with portable players and being able to share media around a home network.

The interface now has six tabs across the top: Now Playing, Library, Rip, Burn, Sync and Media Guide. Each of these tabs has a small arrow that when clicked gives access to sub-options. For example, under Media Guide you can Browse online stores to purchase music or videos.

The Burn function has a couple of clever extras - CD spanning and the choice between burning a music CD or data CD. Using the latter you can make a backup copy of your music tracks.

To burn a music CD, say for playing in the car, insert a blank CD and drag and drop tracks into the burn list - tracks can come from a variety of albums. As you place more tracks into the burn list, a guage lets you know how much space on the CD is being used. Don't worry if you exceed the capacity of a CD because Media Player will burn the first CD and automatically ask you for another blank CD so as to complete your choice of tracks.

The Media Sharing feature may seem extravagant but with so many homes now having more than one computer, it enables you to share music, photos and videos around the network to the other computers. You'll need a device called a digital media receiver or, best of all, you can make good use of your XBox 360 (the XBox is probably used more to stream media than play games in many of situations).

If you've got a large collection of media content on your hard drive, Media Player will catalogue it all. Combined with a very smart search function, you'll be able to find photos you never knew you had, or search your music library by artist, album title or song title - very quickly.

Windows Media Player 11 is worth the download for its modern interface, search function and ability to provide what's needed in today's entertainment world.

A reminder that Internet Explorer 7 will come down the wire as an automatic update very soon for valid users of Windows XP with service pack 2. As mentioned earlier, IE 7 can protect us all much better than earlier versions, particularly against the criminal element who continue to attempt to steal personal finanical details.

In line with security on the Net, Windows Defender is now in its final release version. Defender's function is to ward off malware, particularly the nasties that, again, the criminals are continually spreading to steal bank account data.

Now some good news - Microsoft have released a free accounting package, Microsoft Office Account Express 2007, for home and small business users. You'll need to read through the information to check if Account Express will fit your needs but if you're looking for an accounting package, this one will probably suit. One of its features is to link in with services such as eBay so you can manage your selling and keep track of payments.

Windows Desktop Search is now at version 3. As soon as you start up your computer, Desktop Search begins to index all files in My Documents for each user. That means you can type in a word or phrase to find that file you know is somewhere on your hard drive. As well, Desktop Search indexes your emails and Outlook users in particular benefit by having Desktop Search available right there on Outlook's toolbar.