AutoUP

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on June 28, 2012

It can be hard to keep your software up to date, even programs that check for updates themselves. HQ's AutoUP is a free utility that scans your system to identify your installed and update-capable programs and then searches online for the latest updates. AutoUP can also download and save updates, too. You can set it to run when Windows starts as a one-stop check for all your software. It also accesses and checks Windows Update, too. Handy color-coding tells you at a glance which updates are available and if any are beta versions.

AutoUP's dialog-size interface is colorful by virtue of its visual identification of available updates but is otherwise simple and efficient. Five tabs across the top access its main features: Updates, the default tab, which displays a color-coded list view of available updates; Software, which shows all installed programs; History, a log view offering details about the most recent scan and downloads; System, a system information overview; and Settings, which includes options such as opening the location folder when a download completes and to close AutoUP if no updates are available. It also displays Windows Startup items. We could specify a destination for saving downloaded updates or browse as we saved items. AutoUP displays installed Windows Updates, too. A system tray icon accesses the program's main features.

AutoUP isn't overly aggressive; you have to select items by check box for scanning and downloading. The program identified the usual suspects in its scan of our system, such as Adobe Flash, Firefox, and CCleaner. We could choose to download any update or save it for later. We selected one regular update and one beta to sample AutoUP's capabilities. The program quickly downloaded our updates and opened the destination folder so we could run our updates. Each program updates differently, so you must run each update individually. AutoUP's advantage is in checking for available updates and helping you keep track of your software updates. Having each program run its own update checker at startup can significantly slow your boot speed. Using AutoUP lets you disable multiple individual update checks and still scan for updates regularly.