Say I’ve got an older version of winXP, a creative labs sound card, an ATI video card, Mozilla, IE, Direct X, Adobe reader, etc. and a few other common software items and components.
Is there a site that will scan the entire computer (software and hardware) and recommend the updates needed to get the thing current?
Better yet, will it do it for me? Or are we having to go to each vendor seperately (what I currently do) to get the updates?
Thanks.
There used to be something called “Oil Change” for Windows 95 or 95 – I haven’t used or seen it since then, so I don’t know if they’ve been upgrading it to keep up with Win XP et al. I doubt it, since Goggle has only turned up older references, but you may have better luck.
It worked by keeping a list of components and versions of software, and keeping track of the manufacturer’s website for potential downloads. Good luck.
Well, you know what they say:
Ze goggle, zey do nothing!
I cringe at myself for saying this, but the Windows Update site is fairly good. It gives you lots of updates you have no need for, but patches the updates MS has acknowledged as being worthwhile. Of course, my guess is that they’ve automated (and included the Express Updates) so the average Joe doesn’t see just how many updates his/her PC needs every month to combat the huge holes in the OS. . .
As far as something updating all or even most of your software goes, I generally lean on regular MS updates (replete with their obnoxious and useless updates that have no pertinence to what you do every day) with AVG (which more or less updates itself). Be sure to use Windows Defender, as well - Microsoft owns it, but didn’t design it - that’s why it actually works (for now).
And yes, I am the king of parentheses!
For software which is either part of Microsoft Windows or very closely tied to it, try Autopatcher. Beyond that limited set of software, I’ve never seen anything. If you ever go with a *NIX OS, many distros have unified software libraries which can update everything with one button.
Windows XP updates are available through the Microsoft Update. On my setup it’s on the Start menu.
For the others you need to go to each software house. The latest Adobe reader installs for me whenever I open a PDF document, it it isn’t already on my computer. Right now I’m at Adobe 7.
I’ve used Windiz update successfully many times.