NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Last quarter, Microsoft finally answered the $60 billion question (it said it would use its cash hoard to double its dividend and buy back more shares).

When Microsoft announces fiscal first-quarter earnings after the bell Thursday, analysts will be back to worrying about a more immediate issue -- growth.

For the first quarter, the forecast is for 30 cents a share, excluding a charge of five cents for stock-based employee compensation. That's even with last year.

Microsoft has also said sales should rise about nine percent, to between $8.9 billion and $9.0 billion. For all of fiscal 2005, the software maker expects 6 percent sales growth, down from 12 percent annual gains since 2000.

Given that outlook, analysts will be trying to figure out how a mature Microsoft can strengthen its bottom line and where it can generate growth. For answers, they'll zero in on three key issues.

Analysts will be particularly eager for details about Microsoft's unearned revenue, an indicator of how many customers are renewing software licensing deals.

In 2001, Microsoft announced it would replace its various upgrade programs for small and midsize businesses with a simplified licensing program called Software Assurance, in which customers pay upfront for multiyear contracts that cover upgrades and tech support.

Customers complained about the change, saying it would cost them more, and rushed to sign up for the old program. That created a spike in unearned revenue that has carried through the life of the contracts. Now that's ending.

"This unusual event is finally going to be off the books this quarter," said analyst Matt Rosoff of consulting firm Directions on Microsoft. "So we're getting back to unearned revenue as a more reliable indidator of the quarter-to-quarter health of Microsoft's business."

Analysts will be watching to see how many customers move to the new licensing agreements.

Microsoft had forecast that its deferred revenue balance would drop by as much as $300 million in the quarter and said it expects to keep customers representing between 10 percent and 30 percent of the revenue from the expiring contracts.

But analyst Jason Kraft of Susquehanna Financial Group says expectations are that the number will be higher than 30 percent. He says the announcement of a 2006 introduction for Longhorn may also have helped convince customers to sign new licensing deals.

That means unearned revenue may not drop as much as Microsoft had said. "That could surprise some people," Kraft said.

In August Microsoft confirmed that it was pushing back the launch date of the new version of Windows, called Longhorn, to 2006. A lack of new product rollouts for fiscal 2005 means Microsoft will be relying on increasing PC sales to drive growth in its core Windows and Office businesses.

Earlier this week, research firm Gartner reported that worldwide shipments of PCs grew 9.7 percent in the third quarter, slightly lower than expected. Market research firm IDC, which uses a different methodology, reported that shipments grew 12 percent, slightly ahead of its estimates.

Analysts will be listening for Microsoft's take on growth in demand for personal computers, both in the first quarter and for the full year. "We would be disappointed if the number was less than a high single digit," said analyst Jean W. Orr of Nutmeg Securities.

With revenue growth slowing, Microsoft has recently begun a push to cut costs in an effort to help grow the bottom line. Wall Street will be tracking the progress in those efforts.

"There is definitely room for Microsoft to show earnings improvement in 2005 due to overall expense control across the seven business lines," says Susquehanna's Kraft.

Rosoff of Directions on Microsoft said the company is aiming for general and administrative costs, excluding items such as legal expenses, to come in around three percent to four percent of revenues.

In the near-term Microsoft shares will have to overcome a significant obstacle before they can break out of their recent $24 to $30 range.

The special one-time dividend of $3 a share that Microsoft announced last quarter will be paid out Dec. 2 to shareholders who owned the stock as of the close of business on Nov. 17.

Technically, the dividend should drop the stock price an amount about equal to the payout, though analysts such as Drake Johnstone of Davenport & Co. say it may not fall that full amount.

For the full fiscal year, Microsoft has said it expects sales of $38.4 billion to $38.8 billion, up between 4.3 percent and 5.4 percent over 2004. That's significantly lower than the 14 percent growth in 2004 and 13.5% boost in 2003.

Johnstone notes Microsoft's forecast looks fairly conservative. "If they exceed estimates for this quarter, which I think they will, and raise guidance for the upcoming quarter, investors would be more favorably inclined to Microsoft," he says.