How to keep all your Windows applications up to date the easy way with UpdateStar

How to keep all your Windows applications up-to-date the easy way

I started up a Windows Vista machine recently that hadn’t been turned on for almost 9 months. Of course, the first thing it did once I gave it an internet connection, was start downloading 9 months worth of Windows updates. That was fine, because I needed to do that and it took almost an hour to completely bring the OS up to date. The next task was to make sure everything else was updated; mainly anti-virus and driver updates and that also took an hour or so. I thought I was finished but then I started getting individual application notices popping up and telling me or asking me to check for an update. The problem was almost every application on this machine needed an update.

I figured there had to be an easier way to do this. After all, there is an application on the MAC that scans and checks for updates on all the applications installed on the system so there had to be one for Windows too. I searched the web for a Windows app that could do the same and found 2 but only 1 worked on Windows 7: UpdateStar. My first impression after installing and using this app is; “Where has this application been all my life?”

Installation is simple, check out the video

When you finish, you have the option to run it right away then choose the “Test Premium” button if you want to see how it works. The program reverts to the “Free” edition after the trial expires. For me, the FREE version didn’t seem to work as well as it should so I felt it was worth paying the $29.95 for the Premium version. After you run your first “Search for Updates” by clicking the first button on the top left, you will get a breakdown of how many applications found on your system and how many and what updates are available for them. The video below shows the action.

That’s it for the most part. Download the updates you want from either the UpdateStar web page or go directly to the application site and get the download from them. You don’t always have to update every application but at least you’ll know which ones are behind and how far behind. Last thing, UpdateStar runs in the background by default and will pop-up when something new comes up by default. You will have to go into “Settings” to change that behavior.