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View which Service Packs and Hotfixes are installed

So, you’re a conscientious system administrator or even a very neat and tidy home user who likes to keep his/her PC fully updated and patched against any malignant threats that float around on the interweb. Good for you. You subscribe and read so many postings on various security related forums. So when a new exploit comes along that makes use of a previously known hole, you want to make sure your system’s up-to-date.

To help you out in that endeavour, Nirsoft’s WinUpdatesList is a GUI based viewer that displays all the hotfixes and service packs that are currently installed on your Windows PC. This little utility will help you see whether a required hotfix has already been applied.

WinUpdatesList

Rather than having to open up the Add/Remove programs Control Panel applet and then scrolling through the entries of hotfixes installed, one can easily navigate and more importantly search for a particular hotfix using its KnowledgeBase number. Extended details like the date of installation and the user under whose credentials the hotfix was installed are also listed. The info can also be exported to a text / HTML or XML based file for future review.

Another nifty feature available in the context menu is the ability to go straight to the relevant page in Microsoft’s online knowledge base to supply you with all the details related to that particular hotfix.

It’s freeware and portable, meaning that only the wul executable is required and can be run without any further files installed alongside it.

This utility works on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. On Windows 98/ME, some columns are not displayed, because the related information is not stored in the Registry as in Windows 2000/XP.

Be aware that for now, WinUpdatesList doesn’t work under Windows Vista, this fact being the only negative aspect of this delightful little gem.

Grab it here.

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