List all installed Windows Updates

Nirsoft once again provide us with an excellent utility called WinUpdatesList (via Genbeta) which lists all Windows updates that have been installed on the local system. The software runs as is and can be executed from any location on the hard drive. One interesting aspect is that all Microsoft operating systems from Windows 98 to Windows XP are supported but that the software is not compatible with Windows Vista at all.

The application quickly compiles a list of all Windows Updates, be it hotfixes, service packs or single updates and displays them in a table. It includes information about the name of the update, a description (only NT and XP), the date the update has been installed and by whom it has been installed. A click on a column sorts the table which means it is relatively easy to display all the updates that have been installed by a specific user or to get a chronological listing of the updates.

Even more interesting in my opinion are links to Knowledgebase articles that are included for every update, at least for those that I have checked. This directly opens a browser window with the corresponding Knowledgebase article from Microsoft.

The table or selected rows of it can be exported as html or text files which is extremely useful if you want to compare two installations. Just fire up a tool like Winmerge and compare both reports to see if updates are missing.