Please UPDATE!

I’ve always understood that running the latest release of any software generally is safer, faster, and more compliant with my needs and expectations than running otherwise.

Of course, there are times when you want (*need*) to wait a little before adopting service patches or security patches… i.e. production servers would do well to take a few days after Patch (or Black) Tuesday and let other people bear the brunt of any potential issues like this, this or any of these.

What I don’t understand though, is why recreational users still don’t get it with regards to updating. Most computers I’ve ever been handed along with the phrase, “Please?”, have been running browsers three versions back, haven’t had OS updates in two years, and haven’t even been hugged all year long.

I think that Bruce Schneier said it best. “The user’s going to pick dancing pigs over security every time.” From that, I take it that users generally don’t care to think about the well being of their computing experience until it hinders the dancing pigs.

With that out in the open, let me be frank and state exactly what you get if you adopt a routine update cycle for your machine and the softwares you utilize every day.

Security Security Security. Every day people are looking for ways to circumvent the latest software, some are succeeding. Patching your existing browser or better yet, upgrading to the latest version will help to keep you up to date with recent exploit protection.
Features. Not many software companies (outside of Microsoft World) actually remove features from software during the progression through its life cycle. Newer versions brings more options, diversity, and support for whatever you need. (i.e. New camera, printer, etc etc) Better yet, keeping on top of browser versions means you’re experiencing the web using the latest technologies like HTML5 and CSS3.
Stability. With every new version or patch, the vendor is usually releasing it to alleviate crashes, bugs and other performance/usability issues.
Coherence. So you update Windows regularly, then wonder why your loyal wee printer stops working. You need to update that too once in a while. You see, your operating system vendor may update core components of the system which makes current software or drivers now incompatible or problematic. It’s always nice to check the vendor sites for all of your hardware and software needs.
Internets! Yes, keeping up to date with everything WILL actually allow you to watch those dancing pigs unhindered until you break something else :)

Note:

There is always the exception when it comes to things like this. Corporate level users tend to REQUIRE older software for compatibility reasons. For example, the hotel I was IT admin for three years went through the whole Office 2007 upgrade, and what a calamity that turned out to be. The vendor of their sales software had integrated their system with an ActiveX component that hooked into Office 2003. Upgrading to Office 2007 breaks that part of the system, and the vendor wanted money to provide the fix. Sadly, this is quite standard in the corporate environment, and one of the largest reasons that Internet Explorer 6 is not dead yet despite having been recently buried!

I believe that software vendors should actually be a little more inclined to provide a better service than this. Let me explain. If the sales software is keeping the client having to use Outlook 2003 even two years after the 2007 release, then they are putting the clients security at risk. Vendors whom actually provide support for their software should support it for X many years for X many dollars and during that time be required to keep their software working through the latest release of any patches or service packs of the OS for which it was designed. The client should always keep these things in mind when selecting software that their business will actually be depending on.