Install software on your computer and it’s soon out-of-date. Even a minor bug fix can affect how your favourite software performs on your computer. If you have Windows 7 installed on your PC, then it’s paramount you have the latest revision as software developers quickly fix system-related issues as soon as they are reported by users.
Of course, one solution would be to make a regular visit to PC Authority downloads. We aim to keep the most popular software up-to-date, so if you browse and use the site regularly your software will never be out-of-date. However, most people can’t always remember what software they have installed on their computer and it’s some of the obscure startup applications that can cause the most issues on your machine.
For this reason, we’ve released the PC Authority UpdateScanner. Install this tool on your PC and it will reside in your System Tray and periodically check your installed software against the downloads database and will warn you if updates are available. You can then go to the PC Authority downloads, quickly see the updated software and download to your computer. Once the updated software is installed, the update notifications will clear.
You need a PC Authority downloads account, so make sure you set this up before you install UpdateScanner. If you have unsupported software installed on your computer, you can report this by clicking the ‘Report’ icon next to each application within the ‘Installed Applications’ section of PCA downloads. We have to manually enter each application in to our database to add support within UpdateScanner.
We need your help: what we need you to do is download, install and report back any unsupported applications. When you install PC Authority UpdateScanner, inserting your PC Authority downloads user/pass, you can check your installed apps online, at http://downloads.pcauthority.com.au/?act=user.watchlist.list#installed or by clicking the orange arrow to the right of the PC Authority downloads titlebar. Here you can install your installed applications. When you see unsupported applications, simply click on the orange Report icon and you can send us the unsupported application name. Only the title of the unsupported app is sent. Nothing more. We will then add these software titles to our database (something we need to do manually) and the application should be supported in the near future.
UpdateScanner v1.0.0.5 contains a number of small bug fixes.
Verdict:
This is official PC Authority software that is designed to scan your installed software, examine against our database and inform you whether there are updates to your applications
Your Comments & Opinion
This one detects a low proportion of my installed apps, and lists far more I've never even heard of.. curious.
Hope that will improve..
www.downloadcrew.com reply:
Hi, the UpdateScanner needs user intervention and almost no-one sends us any reports. We need to match the name of an installed app within the downloads database. There's no other way around this. For example, if Acronis True Image is reported as "Acronis Backup" in your Registry, we need to make sure the download article contains the same information, so it can correctly detect the installed app.
It will list apps you might not have heard of as the UpdateScanner, like similar apps, uses an internal Blacklist to hide more obscure apps. Again, without anyone reporting that info, we have to create the Blacklist from our test machines only.
It will improve, we have some plans for UpdateScanner in 2011. However, it's been fairly low priority during the latter half of 2010, with us busy with other technology such as the stores and a brand new website which launches this January! As well as the .com version of this site!
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