You win some, you lose some. You want to make your PC wireless-capable and you want these wireless capabilities to be as updated as often as possible. You go to Intel's Web site and download a software update for the company's wireless hardware--only to find out that the upgrade is faulty so it hogs your PC's memory.

Amy Martin, an Intel spokeswoman, said that the problem affected the Intel PROSet software version 10.5 (the PROSet software accompanies Intel's drivers which run the company's wireless hardware on PCs). "One of the processes used by the Intel PROSet software was not releasing the [file] handles correctly, which caused more and more memory to be used by the process," Martin said. The result was a noticeable slowing down of PCs. Intel said it had made a fix available to PC makers last Friday and that it was planning to post it to the Intel Web site.

The PROSet software's most recent version is from earlier this month. That version fixed some serious security flaws we reported on--for example, the possibility for a hacker to break into a PC through WiFi, or to create a worm that could jump from one wireless-enabled PC to another.

For more on Intel's upgrade:
- read this F-Secure report
- see the flawed upgrade at Intel's Web site

For more on the initial vulnerability issue:
- check out Joris Evers's Cnet News report