The expanded features list comes courtesy of WPSauce.com and includes…

• AppChecker - a feature that will find appropriate applications in the marketplace to enable you to open X or Y file type that isn’t supported either natively by the device or by the software you have pre-installed.
• A special Battery Saving Mode which will be a boon for road warriors.  The phone will be able to be set to go into a special low-power mode when the battery reaches a certain percentage.  This will cut off apps, stop the syncing of emails and more to help conserve the life of the handset.
• Deeper Facebook Integration which will be very welcome along with the addition of support for Twitter and LinkedIn.  This will include such things as check-ins and events which will be piped through to your people hub and your calendar.
• Better Email features include threaded conversations and the ability to flag emails.
• The Calendar gets support for lunar dates to help the phone expand sales in Asia.
• Messaging gets additional features too including nudging people and multi-party conversations.
• It’s Office where some of the biggest and most welcome changes are taking place.  In addition to Skydrive support there will be Microsoft’s new Lync communications platform coming to the app store.
• Finally Connectivity gets a major boost with support for manual IP address setting (essential in business) and far better networking support, including the ability to join hidden wifi networks.  There will be no VPN support in this update however.

There’s little doubt that nearer the time to the final release of the software there will be much more to pour over in this update, and it’ll be a big one.  Possibly the one that brings this smartphone platform into the mainstream.

Much of this will rest on how successful Microsoft are in fixing the problems with business support including issues with Exchange usernames and Outlook syncing.

The error, commonly 801811A5 for those who are interested, is caused by the Zune desktop software hasn’t enabled a particular service in Windows when you’ve set up your Windows Phone.  Fortunately it’s extremely easy to fix.

If you find that your Windows Phone won’t update when it’s telling you that an update is available, follow these simple instructions.

1. In the Start Menu search box type services
2. When it appears in the search results, run Services, you’ll see it has a small cog icon
3. In the window that appears, navigate down the list of services until you find System Event Notification Service.
4. The problem is commonly caused by this service not running, so do one of two things here (or both)
   1. Right click on the service and select Start from the context menu that appears
   2. Right click on the service and select Properties from the context menu that appears, then in the properties dialog that appears change the startup type to Automatic.

Starting the service will help make sure the current update will install, but additionally changing the startup type to automatic (you will probably find it’s currently set to manual) will prevent the error from recurring.

Many people have yet to receive any notification that even the first of these two updates is available to them.

Now Microsoft have published details of when mobile carriers worldwide will be issuing the updates to consumers. The website which you can find here categorises each update as being in Testing, Scheduling or Delivery.

The testing phase doesn’t carry a time-limit though it’s widely agreed that this should be one month maximum. The website defines the scheduling phase as typically lasting 10 days or less, though personal experience has taught me that this phase can go on for much longer depending on which carrier you are with.

The website covers carriers worldwide, though has a seperate page of information for users in the US where the updates are listed by handset rather than carrier.

The website isn’t a difinitive guide as even when an update is in the delivery phase it could still take several weeks for carriers to deliver the update with Microsoft. The problems users of Samsung handsets received with the first update roll-out, where to up 10% of updated handsets had to be returned to the carrier to be reset, will have slowed matters considerably as this is a very time-consuming and costly process, and there would be some debate about where the blame and, therefore the final bill, would end. Whether this be with the carrier, handset manufacturer (in this case Samsung) or with Microsoft for their coding.

The Full Tilt Poker application receives regular updates that increase the application’s functionality and stability. I have recently created an account at the website and was puzzled when the first “There is a new version” notification appeared on the screen after starting the application from the Windows start menu.

I was not puzzled because of the update, but because nothing happened. I selected to install the update only to see the application window shut down completely. A restart of the application displayed the update notification again. It simply would not update the program and I was stuck in update loop hell.

I could not play until the software was updated. I then decided to run the application as an administrator, to see if this fixed the issue.

Fix: run as administrator

Windows users can run software with administrative privileges by right-clicking the executable and selecting Run as administrator from the context menu. To run Full Tilt Poker as an admin you need to open the start menu, locate the application there, right-click it and select to run it as an admin.

The update notification appeared again. A click on Ok this time did not close the application without updating the software. The program switched to an installer that copied files on the system.

The update took a few seconds and the poker interface was started after the updating finished on the system.

I’m not sure why it is necessary to run the application with elevated privileges to update it. It may have something to do with file access rights.

I should also note that the problem occurred on a Windows 7 64-bit system. It can be that users of previous Microsoft operating systems do not have problems updating the software. Windows 7 users on the other hand may be able to use the information to resolve updating issues with other applications as well.

Have you encountered a similar issue before? If so, let me know in the comments.

But there are also unofficial ways to download and install Windows Updates. WSUS Offline Update can for instance offers to download all Microsoft updates for Windows operating systems or Microsoft Office.

The software program has been updated in the past days to include the most recent Windows and Office updates, specifically the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack.

Here is how it works. You need to unpack the portable application to a local directory before you can start the UpdateGenerator.exe file. This opens the interface that you see on the screenshot above.

Operating systems are sorted by version and language. It is possible to select multiple updates at once, for instance for Windows 7 and Office 2010, or different languages.

Several options are displayed at the bottom of the screen. It is for instance possible to create ISO images that can be burned to disc, include service packs, the .NET Framework, Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows Defender definitions in the update or copy updates directly to an USB stick.

The updates are downloaded via a command prompt. This may take a while depending on the updates that have been selected.

The command prompt closes after the downloads have been completed. They can then be installed directly on the local system by starting UpdateInstaller.exe from the client directory.

The available choices depend largely on the system and range from installing Internet Explorer (up to IE9 RC), the .NET Framework 4.0 to Powershell and Microsoft Security Essentials.

A click on Start begins the system update. Windows does not need an Internet connection for this since all updates have been downloaded previously to the computer system.

What are the benefits of using WSUS Offline Update? The program can save bandwidth if multiple computer systems need to be updated. Integration of all available updates for a specific version of Windows and Office make it an ideal product for offline updates, especially for computers who have no Internet connection, or unpatched computers where the user wants to update the system first before going online.

WSUS Offline Update can be downloaded from the official website.

The cause for the delay is apparently last-minute changes that Microsoft has implemented.  Carriers also need two or three weeks to test the update before it can be sent out to users.

It was expected that Microsoft would release the update in time for the World Mobile Congress conference which begins in a little over a week, now though it’s expected that Microsoft will instead use the event to formally announce the release date for the update.

Microsoft have never specified a firm date for any Windows Phone updates, merely saying the first would be out in “early 2011″.  The company really does need to move away from the occasional “service pack” updates it’s been used to delivering for Windows desktop and server systems, and provide more frequent updates to its smartphone platform to keep users happy.

The news which was being broken by LiveSide today could appear on that day.  The update is going to bring cut and paste and some performance improvements.  This would put the release of the update a week before the World Mobile Congress event and, consequently, stop people asking when it would be out throughout the entire event.

Steve Ballmer is set to give a keynote at the event at 5pm GMT on Monday 14th February where he’ll be talking up Windows Phone and perhaps giving us some insight into where Microsoft intends to take the platform in the next couple of years.

While copy and paste isn’t likely to be the feature most people really need on their mobile phones I have to admit that I would have found it useful a few times in the last couple of month’s I’ve had my own Windows Phone handset.

There are no other features expected, the rest of the update will fix bugs, but the full update has now been with developers for a while.  This means that while there is no confirmation of the February 7th date, it does make sense for Microsoft and is in the timescale that we’ve all been expecting.

We’ll bring you more news on the first and any future Windows Phone updates as and when they break.

Windows Update Details

Windows Update always downloads these vital updates automatically. But, you can set up the service to install all or some of the updates as they are received, or to let you review the pending updates before you decide on which to install. Windows Update will provide a Windows PC with:

• The most recent security updates for your OS
• OS updates to improve performance and reliability
• Device drivers from both Microsoft and other companies

Upgrades are different from updates, in that upgrades are new versions of application software, or of the OS itself. Minor version upgrades may be available from Microsoft through Windows Update, but major version upgrades would likely involve a new software purchase, perhaps at a lower upgrade price.

The Microsoft Download Center is a website that contains all the elements of the Microsoft software updating, upgrading, and downloading programs that are both necessary and useful for the continuing operation of your Windows operating system.

The web site contains sub-sites for:

• Microsoft Windows Update
• Microsoft Download Notifications
• Microsoft Store (for both Windows software and MS Office software)
• Microsoft OS Service Packs
• Microsoft Technologies (focusing on Internet Explorer, DirectX, and Windows 7)

Timeline for Windows Updates

Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of every month, is the day that security updates are globally distributed via Windows Update and the Internet. Emergency security updates, however, may be distributed any time it is deemed necessary because of a newly discovered exploit that targets MS Windows.

The Internet is the preferred avenue of distribution for Windows Update to PCs, but Microsoft also provides other means for updates to be received by computers with no Internet connection. However, the PC interface controlling receipt of distributions is different for the various versions of Windows:

• Customer access at the MS Windows Update website (Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 2000)
• Control Panel applet (Windows 7, Windows Vista)

With any OS before Windows Vista, an update that required a PC reboot would display a dialog box every few minutes which would request that the machine be rebooted. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the same dialog box allows entry of a time period, up to four hours, before another dialog box appears — however, some updates that require a reboot may create a displayed countdown, at the end of which the computer will reboot no matter what the current user on the PC is doing, causing possible problems if data is not saved or the user is in the middle of a game.

Tip: It is possible to prevent the forced shutdown manually with the command shutdown –a in the Windows command line.

If there is an unexpected PC shutdown in the middle of an update download, Windows Update makes use of a feature of Windows system files called Transactional NTFS to enable the system to recover cleanly and to ensure that partially loaded updates are fully loaded before being applied.

Windows Update Levels

There are three levels Of Window Updates: Optional, Recommended, and Important.

Optional Updates, are, of course, optional, that a user can review, and choose to install or not to install. Included are:

• Offers for new or trial MS Windows software
• Updated device drivers from non-Microsoft companies (a driver may be promoted to Recommended level if your system is missing that driver and needs it, or the new driver has major feature revisions)

Recommended Updates are those enhance the computing OS experience, improving performance. Included are:

• Compatibility updates
• Revised contents of Help files
• New features for the Windows OS
• New features for other Microsoft software

Important updates are oriented more toward security and reliability. Included are:

• Security and privacy updates
• Significant reliability updates
• Updates for detection of non-genuine Microsoft software
• Verification of copyright-protected media

Options can be set to download and install automatically both the Important updates (set as a default) and the Recommended updates — with Windows XP, however, only the updates that are classified High-Priority will be downloaded and installed automatically.

Disabling Windows Update

If you want to disable Windows Update, you can disable the service for the PC, or by user-name. For an entire PC, the Group Policy Editor is used to disable Windows Update in the general User Configuration.

For individual users, REGEDIT is used to disable Windows Update in a User Registry key:

• In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer, create a new DWORD key.
• Make the Name of the key NoWindowsUpdate, and set the Value to 1.
• Whenever this user attempts to start Windows Update, an error message will display.

Troubleshooting Windows Update Errors

Windows Update is an essential maintenance element for the optimum performance of your computer. However, errors can occur during the normal operation of this important service. Here’s where we describe what measures you can take if Windows Update stops working on your computer system.

Measure #1: Check Internet Connection

Windows Update depends a great deal on Internet connectivity. First step is to see if you have full Internet connectivity by connecting to several web sites — if able to do so, the next step is to check the reliability of the connection, by checking email, signing on to forums, and looking at videos. If connection seems reliable, wait fifteen minutes and try running Windows Update again.

Measure #2: Start Supporting Services

Windows Update depends on several other services that also must be running on your PC. Check for these other services by clicking on Start, typing SERVICES.MSC, and pressing ENTER. Check in the display of services at the right for the names:

• Background Intelligent Transfer Service
• Cryptographic Services
• Automatic Updates
• Event Log

For each one whose Status is not Running, double-click to make the General tab appear — Startup Type should be Automatic. Click the Start button to change the service to a Running status.

Measure #3: Check Firewalls

The next measure to make sure the Windows Firewall is running, and not a firewall from a company other than Microsoft. To ensure continuous firewall protection, turn on the MS Firewall before turning off any other firewall.

• First, enable the Windows firewall by clicking Start…Run, typing FIREWALL.CPL in the Open box, and pressing ENTER.
• Second, disable any other firewall that may be running on your PC.

Now, try running Windows Update again.

Measure #4: Check Anti-Virus

Start the Security Center applet in the Control Panel, and turn off or disable the anti-virus application listed under either ‘Virus Protection’ or ‘Malware Protection’ section. Try running Windows Update again, and then immediately go back to the Security Center and enable the anti-virus application that had been disabled. Be careful with this measure — temporarily turning off your anti-virus application may allow Windows Update to start up, but, at the same time, doing so will leave your PC vulnerable.

Measure #5: Check Accelerators

Check to see if your PC has any Internet accelerators installed to increase the performance of Internet access. Such software can interfere with the operation of Windows Update. Consult the documentation for those accelerators to either disable or uninstall the software. Check the operation of Windows Update again.

Measure #6: Reset the Windows Update Folder

A corrupt file within the Windows Update distribution folder may be causing a problem with Windows Update. The solution is to reset the folder.

• Open a command prompt with the CMD, making sure the command is being Run as Administrator.
• In the CMD prompt, type WuAuServ and press enter (this action stops the Windows Update service).
• Wait for a response that the Windows Update service was successfully stopped.
• Type %windir% in the OPEN box of the Start Menu, and press Enter.
• Right-click the SoftwareDistribution folder, and select Rename.
• Rename the folder to SoftwareDistributionOLD (saving the original contents so that you can revert to them if needed by renaming to the original name).
• Back in the CMD window, type “net start WuAuServ” (without quotes). and press ENTER.
• Use the same steps you used in Measure #2 to check to see if the Windows Update service is running.

Try to run Windows Update — if unsuccessful, rename the SoftwareDistributionOLD folder back to its original name of SoftwareDistribution.

Measure #7: Check System Files

System files may have become corrupted, and you may need to scan the Windows system files to see if they are still correct and accurate.

• In a CMD box (started up in the same way as described in Measure #6), type “sfc /scannow” (without quotes), and press ENTER.
• When the scan is done, close the CMD box, and reboot your PC.

Try running Windows Update when your PC comes back up.

Measure #8: Verify BITS Files

BITS stands for Background Intelligence Transfer Service, and these files are essential to the functioning of Windows Update. It is possible the BITS files on your PC may be corrupted. You can download a BITS repair tool at the MS website:

32-bit Windows

64-bit Windows

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the BITS Repair Tool on your PC, reboot and let the tool run.

Measure #9: Check Support Sites

Check these two Microsoft support websites for descriptions of problems that may be similar to yours, with possible solutions.

FAQ
Problems

If this last measure does not help you to restore Windows Update to its proper functioning, then contact MS Customer Support.

Helpful Windows Update Videos

Other Update Tools

Windows Update takes care of the specific updates to the Windows operating systems, and those to other Microsoft software applications as well — but what about all those other software applications that you have installed on your PC that have just a great a need for up-to-date updates? Here are several update tools that will help you take care of the need for updates by your other software applications.

CTUpdate (WSUS Offline)

Supports all Microsoft operating systems and languages. Users just need to select their operating system and language from the list to download all updates for it. It is optionally possible to create an ISO image or copy the data to an USB device instead of a hard drive. The patches can then be applied once everything has been downloaded.

Windows Update Downloader

Only for pre-Windows 7 operating systems. WUD allows you to download all of the current Windows Updates using a simple interface. All of the updates are contained in Update Lists (ULs) which allows you to choose which updates you want for which version of Windows.

UpdateStar

Update Star is a freeware application that helps you keep track of all the software installations on your PC, checking that the latest patches, fixes, and updates are downloaded for whatever is installed on your PC. This software does not download anything, though.

Software-Uptodate

This monitoring tool checks with an online database to see what’s current for updates for many software packages, and displays a notification when there is an available update (although it does not do the download itself).

Personal Software Inspector

This monitoring software, from Secunia Company, uses a database containing information on over four thousand software applications to inspect your system for weak spots, such as missing critical patches for software installed on your PC. The software, however, does not download anything.

Additional Resources

See also

Fixing Windows Update Error 0x80072ee2
Windows Update Fix
Windows Update Error services not running

There are two scenarios where Windows users or admins may want to block updates from being displayed. The first is to block an update’s deployment in a small to middle sized business or organization, the second if an update is either not needed, or known to cause problems in a single computer environment.

We for instance installed the Windows 7 Professional SP1 Beta on our test system a while ago, but decided to remove it after a while. Windows however kept nagging at every system startup that an update was available. Even worse, the update was always automatically selected in Windows Update, next to the other security patches and releases that we wanted to install.

That meant that we had to manually find and uncheck the update to prevent its installation in Windows 7. We first thought it would be enough to uncheck the update once in Windows Update to prevent its installation, but it got reselected automatically whenever Windows Update was started anew.

windows update

Windows Update does have a mechanism to block specific updates. The answer is revealed after right-clicking an update that should not be installed on the system, and that the user does not want to receive notifications about.

A right-click, and the selection of Hide Update, unchecks the update in the updating software, and changes the color of the update’s name to a lighter gray.

The effect can be tested immediately by closing and opening Windows Update again. The frontpage, which lists all available updates for the operating system is no longer listing the blocked update.

Windows Update offers an option to restore hidden updates at anytime. The Restore Hidden Updates link in the left sidebar of the main Windows Update window opens a page listing all updates that haven been blocked on the system.

restore hidden updates

Selecting an update and clicking the Restore button at the bottom of the screen will add it to the update cycle again, so that the update can be installed and deployed.

block windows updates

This method of hiding updates in Windows Update is obviously only practical for single computers or small computer networks. Admins have other tools at their disposable to control the updates that are installed on the client machines that they manage.

Have another tip regarding Windows Update? Let us know in the comments.

One of those ways is with the help of bash aliases. A bash alias is a way to create shortcuts to commands that would normally take a lot of typing or are a challenge to remember. So instead of ssh -v -l jlwallen 192.168.1.10 I could enter just desktop or whatever I want that shortcut to be. In that vein, I am going to offer up some very handy shortcuts for you to add to make your command line usage more efficient.

Where they go

If you open up a terminal and issue the command ls -a |less you should come across a file called ~/.bashrc. This file is very powerful and handles a LOT of tasks. One such task is that of aliases. Within that file you will find the section:

# Alias definintions

This is where you put your user-created aliases…and where we will place the aliases listed below. Once you create the aliases, you will notice they don’t work within the same terminal you used to add them with your text editor. You have to fire up a new terminal to make sure they work. Because of this, always leave your original terminal open to make sure the new terminal will still work. I have witnessed a user fubar their bash such that the terminal would no longer open. So use caution when randomly closing your terminals. Now, on the aliases.

Ask before you remove

Admit it, you’ve accidentally deleted a file that could have been prevented if you had used the -i switch with the rm command. To avoid this common mistake, let’s add an alias such that any time the rm command is issued, it is done with the -i switch. This alias would look like:

alias rm=”rm -i”

Secure shell

As I mentioned earlier, secure shell’ing to a machine can be a real pain when you do it over and over. Create an alias like so:

alias server1=”ssh -v -l USER ADDRESS”

Where USER is the user name you would log in with and ADDRESS is the address of the machine you are remoting into.

Bookmark alias

Here’s a fun one. You can open up your browser to a specific bookmark, from the command line with an alias like so:

alias ghacks=”chromium-browser http://www.ghacks.net”

Of course you would replace chromium-browser with your default browser and the URL with the address you want the browser to open up to.

RPM batch installation

Say you do a lot of batch installations of RPMS. And say you always save your RPM files to ~/RPMS. You can add an alias to quickly install those RPMS like so:

alias brpm=”rpm -ivh ~/RPMS/*rpm”

Update/upgrade with apt

Instead of having to issue both command for updating apt and upgrading your installation, combine them into one easy to use alias like so:

alias update=”sudo apt-get update ; sudo apt-get upgrade”

You will have to enter your sudo password once and the update/upgrade will take place.

Final thoughts

Bash aliases are only limited to your imagination. After you spend enough time with the command line you will see that these aliases can really make your day to day Linux life much easier.

Update Notifier is an alternative software updates checker which can be installed or run as a portable application. The program uses a clean interface that displays the installed version of scanned software programs, the latest known version in the database and a link to a website from where the application can be downloaded in case a newer version is available. The results were correct for all tested applications which is something that several of the previously tested software updater failed in.

A click on the download button will open the website of the software developer that contains information about the application. It takes another two clicks to start the download that is available directly from the same website. There is unfortunately no direct link to the website of the software developer itself to verify the findings or to download the software from there.

Update Notifier can be configured to filter the results list. Filters include the listing of only commercial or free software as well as listings based on the type of update available. The program can also be pointed at a folder on the local computer system containing portable applications to check those for updates as well.

My conclusion was that although Digsby is a fantastic messaging client with good design and features, the 70mb+ RAM usage became just too much to put up with.

Only a few days ago however I was excited to see that the Digsby team has released a new alpha build for testing purposes. Apparently the developers have spent the last few months completely rewriting the underlying architecture of Digsby in order to bring RAM usage down to an acceptable level.

“We completely reworked the architecture to use less memory and also improved the memory management by releasing objects when they are no longer needed.  We also hunted down and eliminated numerous memory leaks.  All in all, these changes lower Digsby’s RAM usage by over 50%. It should now hover in the 20MB – 50MB range depending on how many accounts you have and what you are doing at the moment.”

That’s not all, the Digsby blog post also describes these other changes:

Performance:
User interface should be performing between 2 and 4 times faster then before. That includes things such as menu re-drawing and buttons etc. Promise for future builds to focus on GUI response time, CPU utilization and the like.

Firewalls and Proxy Servers:
IM timeouts where another annoying issue with previous Digsby builds and this one has introduced multiple automatic attempts at connecting through various ports.

Crash Reporter:
This is still a product under development and bug-catching is crucial, this build introduces a ‘crash reporter’ for helping the team locate all the rare and tricky bugs. “The major changes in architecture in this build may introduce a couple of new crash causing bugs and that is one of the reasons why we want to test the build before releasing it to everyone.”

Bug Fixes + Enhancements:
Numerous bug fixes and various enhancements, the full list will be provided with the public release.

I got between 15 (idle) – 50mb with MSN, 2 Hotmail accounts, Gtalk, Facebook + Chat, MySpace and Twitter all running. Some people are reporting Digsby running at as low as 10-15mb, although I have no idea how many accounts they use.

Such was my dedication that I sat here for 4 hours downloading this new build over my crippled Internet connection at around 3kbs and enduring two time-outs halfway through.

It was worth it though, check it out!

Autopatcher has been closed down by Microsoft. There is an alternative, a great one that can be used instead. It is called c’t Offline Updater. It supports Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, windows Server 2003, 64-bit editions of XP and Server 2003 as well as Windows Vista. Besides the operating systems it also supports Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003 and Office 2007. As you can see from the screenshot below lots of different languages are supported as well.

The user has the option to exclude service packs and to create iso images, either one CD iso for every operating system or Office edition or one DVD iso that contains all the patches. A click on start begins the download process which can take some time. When the download finishes you find the created iso(s) in the /iso subdirectory.

You can then burn the iso and start it directly in Windows. Several options are presented when you execute UpdateInstaller.exe. The script asks if you want to create backups, install Internet Explorer 7, automatically reboot and recall or show the log file.

A click on start begins the update process. The Offline Update is an excellent way to download all patches for your operating system in one go.

The only way was until recently to visit the websites that host the applications manually and check for new versions. Some offered mailing lists or RSS feeds which could be used to stay informed without visiting the website right away.

So called Software Updaters could be the solution. There are actually quite a few programs out there that scan your computer for applications and display a list of outdated ones after the scan. But which one finds the most applications, which has the database that is updated most frequently and which actually works ?

That’s what I’m going to find out today with the battle of the software updaters. The applications that I tried are:

AppGet
Appupdater
File Hippo Update Checker
Secunia Personal Software Inspector
Sumo
Update Star

AppGet:

AppGet was the only software that did not check for updates. I’m not sure if I missed a button somewhere but I was not able to check for updates manually nor find a button to do that automatically. It did find more applications than any other updater but since it did not find any updates it’s pretty useless to me.

The software is Beta which could be the reason but this is the main function of a software updater next to scanning for software. What I liked is that software versions are reported to the central database which means that the database gets updated during a scan for applications.

Appupdater:

The scan found 79 applications of which 16 had to he updated. A button do download all updates and to install all updates was offered as well as options to uninstall the applications. Most applications did not have a (single) download button and false positives where reported. Firefox 2.0.0.11 was in the list although that was the installed version on the computer.

The option to download updates for every installed application independently is missing and the information panel is not showing the current version of the application that it asks you to download.

File Hippo Update Checker:

When you execute the File Hippo application it scans your computer and displays a list of updates on the File Hippo homepage. File Hippo is only scanning for applications that are available on their website which could explain why it did only find 18 applications while Sumo and Update Star found almost twice as much.

All updates have to be downloaded separately using the interface, a way to upload all at once would have been great. I like the way the information are presented, the name of the application the installed version, the latest version and the size of it are displayed.

File Hippo does not take into account licensed software. I have Nero 7 installed for instance and it displays that the latest version of Nero 8 was available. It is however not possible to update unless I would pay for the update.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector:

The Secunia Personal Software Inspector is more a security application than a software updater. It scans your computer for insecure applications and displays them in a list. What puzzles me a bit is that several applications have been listed up to three times in the list.

The newest Beta version of Opera was not recognized as well and I was told to update it. Several buttons are directly accessible in that list, a button to download the latest version, to display information, to open the folder and to rescan the application. It’s a vulnerability scanner however and does not find many free and Open Source applications.

Sumo:

Sumo was one of the two applications that found twice as many updates as all the other tested applications. One reason however could be that it did split components of one application. It did find updates for Nero, Nero Backitup and Nero Home for instance which could all be updated with one update. It did have the same problem that File Hippo had, that it suggested to update to Nero 8 while I was still using Nero 7.

Updates cannot be downloaded directly. If you select a file from the list and click on Get Update a page on the Sumo homepage will be loaded showing statistics of the application, that is how many users are using which version of it. The website offers to search for updates at Major Geeks, File Forum and Google. Direct Download links would make this application way better and are really missing.

Update Star:

If I had to choose the visually most appealing application it would be Update Star. It did find the most updates either, the list can be sorted to only display older programs or include unknown versions or ignored programs as well. Most entries have a download link next to their name, current version and installed version.

Download links lead directly to the programs homepage. There is unfortunately no update all button available which means that you have to click on each download button, visit the homepage, download and install the application and repeat the process until you have updated all applications.

Update Star is as well suggesting to update Nero 7 to Nero 8 which is not possible without purchasing the new version.

Conclusion:

If I would have to choose only one application I would choose the Update Star. It delivers most updates, has a clean way of displaying them in a list and links directly to the authors homepage. A button to download all would have been nice though and a way to disable the scan of commercial applications.

AppGet did not work unfortunately and I will take a look at it when the author is updating the current version.

This time I found 16 updated applications that I have written earlier at Ghacks about. Some great softwares such as Opera, Mediecoder and doPDF have been updated and are probably worth the update. Please keep in mind that some of the softwares here on the list are alpha or beta versions which means that you should be cautious to update the software on your computer.

• BSPlayer 2.24.954 – Movie player./li>
• CodecInstaller 2.6.3 – Find out which codecs have been used to create a movie.
• doPDF 5.3.231 – PDF converter.
• DDVDFab Decrypter 3.2.0.0 – copy and remove protections from DVDs
• FileZilla 3.0.1 – FTP client.
• FlashGet 1.9.6 – Download manager
• GIMP 2.4.0 RC3 – Image manipulation software.
• JLC’s Internet TV 1.1 Beta 6 – Watch free Internet TV channels using this client.
• MediaCoder 0.6.0.3880 – Universal media transcoder.
• MusicBrainz Picard 0.9.0alpha14 – tag your music collection.
• Notepad++ 4.3 – Notepad replacement with syntax highlighting.
• Opera 9.50 Build 9542 Alpha – New alpha version of Opera.
• Process Monitor v1.23 – Advanced System Monitoring.
• Rapget 1.39 – Download manager for sites such as Rapidshare and Megaupload.
• Speedbit Video Accelerator 2.1.9 Beta – Stream videos faster and smoother.
• XdN Tweaker 0.8.8.2 – tweak Microsoft Windows.

As usual the updates overwrites all Firefox files without interfering with custom files and settings.

One critical security issue has been fixed, the other ones were high (1), moderate (3) and low (2). Just make sure you update as soon as possible and everything should be sorted out fine.

The languages that have been added are Afrikaans, Belarusian, Georgian and Kurdish. They are currently in beta phase and not available from the main Firefox download page.

To summarize the procedure. You load the Vista DVD, choose not to enter a product key when it prompts for one and continue the installation by choosing the right Vista edition. This will install a 30 day trial version of Vista. Run the setup again, this time from the now fully working Vista.

Type in your product key and choose a custom (advanced) installation when asked. This simply means that Windows Vista will be installed again on your system, this time with the right product key. Delete the windows.old directory afterwards which contains the files from the first installation.

Is it a loophole ? Yes it is. Everyone can now use Vista Update DVDs to install Windows Vista without having the operating system at hand that has to be used to update.

Some users who are experiencing bugs or are concerned about security might want to have the updated version as soon as possible to fix bugs and security holes as soon as possible. The following link is to an ftp site that offers firefox 2.0.1 for all supported operating systems and languages.

If you want to be fast go get it know, otherwise wait one more day and get it the regular way. If you are interested about the fixes in this version check out the mozillazine website which lists more than 150 fixes to firefox 2.0. Of note is that 42 bugs that crashed firefox, 3 memory leaks and 4 privacy related bugs have been fixed.

• support for additional sound codecs such as ogg and flac
• support for games such as Doom, Sokoban and Sudoku
• support for applications like calculators, battery related and text editors
• video support (yes even for ipod nanos 1st gen for instance)
• Gameboy emulator

Installing Rockbox is not as difficulty as it sounds. Take a look at the manual pages which contains all the information you need for all supported mp3 players. Again, you should be very careful before you proceed. Everything is explained in detail and it should not be that much of a problem to install the new firmware. The rockbox forums are also a great way to have any remaining questions answered before making the changes.