Microsoft's Windows XP shed a large amount of usage share again last month as users continued to desert the decade-old operating system for Windows 7.

Windows XP lost 2.4 percentage points of share to post a December average of 46.5%, a new low for the aged OS in the tracking of Web metrics firm Net Applications. The month's fall nearly matched the record 2.5-point drop of October.

In the four months from September to December, XP jettisoned more than 11% of its share as of Sept. 1, falling by nearly six percentage points during the period.

The four months prior to that -- May through August -- XP lost only 3.4 points, or about 8.5% of the share it owned as of May 1.

Windows 7 has been the beneficiary of XP's decline, gaining 2.4 percentage points last month to reach 37%. In the same four months that XP lost 5.9 points, Windows 7 grew by 6.4 points, taking up the slack from not only Microsoft's oldest supported OS, but also the hapless Windows Vista.

If you are using  a domain environment with roaming profiles or home directories that are located on remote machines (servers) and experience slow log-on process this is probably because Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 are configured not to detect to which Windows Domain Controller they belong to by default.

Here's how to speed up the logon process on Windows 7 machine. (Probably will apply to Windows XP too).

Design flaws in the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) standard used by most modern routers could make it easier to retrieve a wireless network's password through brute force and leave it open to attack. The issue was first brought to light by security researcher Stefan Viehböck and has since prompted a vulnerability notice from the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT).

The WPS standard was created in 2007 by the Wi-Fi Alliance in order to provide non-technical users with simpler methods of setting up secure wireless networks. One of these methods uses a predefined eight-digit PIN number printed on a sticker by the router manufacturer. The problem, according to Viehböck, is that entering the wrong PIN returns information that could be useful to a hacker.

Microsoft has issued a rare out-of-band update to plug a vulnerability in the .NET Framwork. The bulletin (MS11-100) comes several weeks before the next regularly scheduled Patch Tuesdayin mid-January and addresses a flaw that could allow attackers to exploit hash tables to perform a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against a website built with Microsoft's ASP.NET application framework.

Usually, DoS attacks require thousands of computers (often malware-controlled systems in a botnet) to overwhelm a site with requests. However, this opening would allow an attacker to cripple a vulnerable site by sending a certain type of HTTP request. Each request sent would consume 100% of one CPU core. Sending several of such requests could easily devour all of a server's processing resources.

We just can't stop giving away free licenses for great applications !

This time, we are giving away 10 yearly licenses for Emsisoft Anti-Malware and Anti-Virus application.

Here's what you get with Emsisoft Anti-Malware application...

Free: 2 scanners to clean infections: Anti-Malware + Anti-Virus!

· Not just any scanners, but a combination of two world class products - the Emsisoft Anti-Malware, and the Ikarus Anti-Virus engine. Latest tests approve that both are cutting edge in Malware detection.

· No doubling of the scan duration as would be the case with two separate scanning programs. Considerable performance improvement is possible thanks to the integration of the two engines on the lowest level.

· No double price - two top security products for the price of one.