A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an app called VersionTracker Pro. At the time, I was trying to determine if my video drivers were up-to-date.  I was having some issues and was hoping there was a fix. nVidia doesn't make new drivers for laptops easy to find. They want you to use the laptop manufacturer's website.  But Dell doesn't always release new video drivers promptly.

And VersionTracker Pro was the answer to this prayer, and to several others I've had.  How?  What does it do? It checks the versions of all your software and drivers on your system, and compares them with the versions in their database.  If you're out of date, it lets you know, and even can download the new versions for you.  If you have version X of an app and you really like it, and don't want to upgrade to version Y, you can tell it that, and it won't remind you anymore until version Z comes out.

It's very slick with a pretty nice interface:

Apps in black are up-to-date.  The one in red and blue have an upgrade available.  The ones in blue are the ones that I've tagged as ok.  Their database isn't perfect.  If you look closely at my "blue" apps, you'll see that IZArc's current build is listed as 3.81 Build 1550, and I have 3.81.  They're the same.  If you find a problem like this, you can submit it through the interface, and it should be corrected in the near future.  Like an antivirus application, you download updates on a regular basis. You can also submit new apps for their database and have them watched as well.

The driver version checker doesn't display version numbers, but merely tells you whether you're up-to-date or not:

Notice at the bottom there's information about the specific app or driver that you have selected.

I set VersionTracker to run at startup and it checks every four hours for updates.  It just sits in your system tray and will let you know if there are new downloads available.

You can download a trial for free that merely checks your status, but doesn't download anything (you could do all that by hand I suppose).  The full version costs $29.95 US, and you're allowed to install it on up to three PC's.

This is a great app and highly worth the $30.

I have the Windows version. I believe that there are versions available for Mac OS X and Palm OS as well.