I’m a little disappointed in Microsoft right now because they almost included an outstanding feature in Windows Vista. The other day one of the Firefox nightly builds crashed which wasn’t a shock to me. And when a program crashes in Vista it always checks with Microsoft to see if other people are experiencing the same problem. Vista lets you know what it finds out in the Problem Reports and Solutions center, and normally I just ignore it. For some reason I actually read through it this time, and there was one thing that caught my attention.
In the upper-right corner of the report it told me what the latest version of Firefox was, when it was released, and gave me a link to go download it. This information is normally important for users who have problems because a newer version could solve any issues they are facing. Here’s what it looked like (note the area I drew the red box around):
I know you’re probably wondering what the big deal is. It’s just that Windows was able to tell me what the latest version of Firefox was, but why isn’t there a way for me to manually check for updates if this capability is already built-in?
I originally thought that this information would be coming from Windows Marketplace, but the last version of Firefox that it has available was back from August. At the time of receiving this report I had been prompted to download Firefox 2.0.0.8, which was released just days before I got the error message.
In the past we’ve tried to create our own custom update notifier and reviewed several applications (here, here, here, and here) that were all supposed to do what Windows is already capable of. What we really need is something integrated into Vista. Come on Microsoft, is it really that much to ask to give us a button to check for updates to our programs? It would fit in well with the Programs and Features in the Control Panel (it’s the same thing as Add/Remove in older versions of Windows), and such a feature could truly help make a user’s computer more secure.
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Tags: Software, Windows, Applications, Features, Windows Vista
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Can you imagine the amount of difficultly involved in creating an update system for every PC application?
In order for MS to do that properly, they’d have to verify every single update from every single one of the hundreds of thousands of apps, because otherwise they’d be liable for forcing people to install updates from a potentially insecure or dangerous application.
It’s easy for the linux world to handle this because of the open nature and repository system.
As a programmer, I’d be wary of such a system as well. I wouldn’t want to have to rely on MS for including my application in the list. It would be a nightmarish system, akin to allowing the DMV to control when we got new tires for our vehicles.
I don’t think it would be that difficult for Vista to include an updater. Maybe it could have you select which apps to check for updates for, to prevent bogging the system down. It would definitely be nice to have.
I’d prefer they fix other things in the OS first…they’re not short of ‘em.
What about just using Linux? All those nice features built in!
I’ve sent feedback to microsoft requesting this very feature. I’m aware of all the software available, but none is perfect. Microsoft could have made some good PR by pointing out the need to upgrade old versions with security problems is now a lot easier.
I’m not talking about updating the actual programs, just notifying us of the updates. And then just give us a link to download the most recent version of the program. That way Microsoft doesn’t have to verify anything, and they could setup some sort of system for developers to update the version number of their program.
I like that idea, but I don’t think it would bog down the system much. All it would ever have to do is check for program updates every day or every week.
I do use Linux quite a bit, but there are many programs that I use in my daily routine that do not have comparible apps in Linux.
I’m glad you feel the same way as me! I think I’ll try and send them some feedback as well.