Microsoft's first set of security bulletins for 2008 may be slim, but will include a fix for a critical vulnerability in XP and Vista.

To be issued on January 8, the patches will address a remote code execution vulnerability and a local privilege escalation vulnerability.

THe former is rated 'critical' on Vista and XP, 'important' on Windows Server 2003, and 'moderate' on Windows 2000.

The latter is rated 'important' and affects Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003.

Both updates will require restarts.

In addition, Microsoft is planning to release five non-security, high-priority updates on Microsoft Update and Windows Server Update Services, and two non-security, high-priority updates for Windows on Windows Update and Windows Server Update Services.