I can't remember how I came across this; it may have been someone at the Glade. In any case, I think it's worth a mention. It's basically the best piece of Windows software ever made.
http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/Secunia PSI (Personal Software Inspector) will scan your Windows box for any and all software that is missing any patches with security implications. Its database is impressively -- nay, almost disturbingly -- large. It recognizes all kinds of weird, obscure programs installed to all kinds of bizarre, inappropriate places.
<Billy Mays>But wait!</Billy Mays>
Not only does it detect insecure programs, but it can actually automatically (and silently) update some of the more obnoxious common programs for you, like Flash, Acrobat, and Java. But even for all the programs it can't automatically update, it gives you one-click access to either the vendor's download page or directly to the installer package itself.
By default, it scans constantly in the background for application changes and updates. In my experience, it seems to be smart about this; I doesn't seem to be resource hog, and my office workstation is pretty resource-starved. That said, you can disable the automatic scanning and just use it for on-demand scans if you prefer. Either way, it has a system tray icon that will alert you when your "score" drops below 100%, and changes color accordingly.
It's not a unified Windows package manager, but it's probably the next best thing and as good as you're ever going to get on that platform. Also keep in mind that it deals strictly with security vulnerabilities. It doesn't care (and won't tell you) if you're running some old version of Firefox, or whatever, as long as that version is free of any known security vulnerabilities. In other words, feature patches and major version upgrades are generally speaking your own business.
Best use for this ever: installing it on unsavvy friend's and family's computers. I'm sure you know someone who absolutely flips their **** whenever Flash asks about an update. It doesn't matter that the answer has been, "yes, you should install that" the last 15 times -- if it ever asks them again, they will be thrown into a tailspin of confusion and uncertainty. PSI makes your life much easier:
"You see this little green thing right here?"
"Yes."
"If it turns any color but green, or asks you to do anything, you do whatever it says. Always. Every time."
PSI is free, but it also has a commercial big brother called CSI. CSI is the same thing as PSI, except it reports all of its findings back to a central reporting server for keeping track of patches across an entire corporate network, or whatever.
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