SEATTLE — Brisk computer sales, continued strength in the server and tools market, and a big tax benefit helped boost Microsoft Corp.'s fiscal fourth-quarter profits nearly 37 percent.

For the three months that ended June 30, the world's largest software maker said, net income climbed to $3.7 billion, or 34 cents a share, up from $2.69 billion, or 25 cents, a share a year ago. Sales rose 9 percent to $10.2 billion, up from $9.3 billion a year ago.

Earnings results, released after the markets closed yesterday, included a 9-cent-per-share tax benefit, a stock-based compensation expense of 3 cents per share and legal expenses of 5 cents a share. Excluding those one-time items, earnings would have been 33 cents a share.

Microsoft shares fell 2 percent in after-hours trading, after ending at $26.44 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, up 25 cents.

One analyst surmised that a slight drop in operating income might have concerned some investors. "It was flat enough that people are probably saying, 'Wow, there wasn't a whole lot of year-over-year growth,' " said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with the independent Directions on Microsoft.

For the fiscal year ending June 30, Microsoft reported earnings of $12.25 billion, or 1.12 cents a share, a nearly 50 percent increase from fiscal 2004, when its profit was $8.17 billion. Revenue was $39.78 billion in fiscal 2005, up from $36.84 billion the previous year.

The 2005 year "turned out to be a much better year than we expected," company chief financial officer Chris Liddell said.

Liddell cited a bigger-than-expected uptick in demand for personal computers, and double-digit growth in sales of servers and tools, as well as Xbox consoles, video games and online game service subscriptions.

One of Microsoft's main cash cows, the Windows operating system, posted a $2.18 billion profit, up slightly from $2.03 billion a year ago.

Profits in the company's other big moneymaker, the division that includes its Office software suite, dipped slightly to $2 billion, down about $20 million from the same period a year ago. Revenue increased to $2.91 billion, up from $2.84 billion last year.

Rosoff pointed to a solid increase in unearned revenue, money the company must put aside and realize as profit over time. In the Office unit alone, unearned revenue rose from $2.27 billion in the third fiscal quarter to $2.81 billion in the fourth quarter.

A 22 percent spike in Xbox sales narrowed the company's losses in its home and entertainment division to $179 million, compared with $340 million a year ago. "I think that, to some degree, validates Microsoft's business model in getting into the console space in the first place," Rosoff said. "Microsoft is selling more games and fewer consoles, and that's really the business model. They acknowledged it would be expensive to get a foothold in the market."