Easily install and update apps on your home PC with Patch My PC Home Updater

My colleagues and I oversee numerous applications across our 6,000 managed workstations. Keeping these applications up-to-date is critical, as 70% of successful malware attacks target outdated vulnerabilities. Security updates occur monthly, sometimes even more frequently. Repackaging applications for managed devices is time-consuming, so we adopted Patch My PC years ago.
Patch My Pc enables us to save countless hours by automating the patching process for many applications installed on our workstations managed by Configuration manager or Intune. But what about your personal owned Windows devices?

Managing applications on managed devices is essential, and similarly, it’s sensible to manage applications on your personal Windows device as well.

However, this can be time-consuming, and it’s easy to forget to perform this task, which can result in applications that are vulnerable to malware attacks.

This is where the Patch My PC Home Updater comes in! The Home Updater has become even more awesome with its latest version being completely redesigned. In this post, I will demonstrate how to use it and explain why it’s beneficial for your personal device.

The Home Updater not only updates your installed applications but also includes a built-in library for easily installing other applications.

Installing Home Updater

First lets install the Home Updater, go to the Patch My PC Home Updater website and click on the Download button to download the Home Updater msi.

Download Home Updater

Go to your Downbloads folder and open the PatchMyPC-HomeUpdater.msi.

Home Updater msi

Select the checkbox: I agree to the license terms and conditions, then click Install. Your can read the terms and conditions by clicking on I agree to the license terms and conditions.

Installation step Home Updater

Installing the Home updater only takes a few seconds after installing Home Updater is started immediately and will show you all your installed applications and if they are Outdated or Up to date.

I will cover the different sections of the Home Updater: Apps, Settings, Uninstaller, Schedular and About.

Overview Home Updater

Apps

So thew first screen that you will see when starting the Home Updater is the Apps section and My Apps. In My Apps you will see the installed apps on your device and if they are Up to date or Outdated.

Apps Section and My Apps Home Updater.

My Apps

Update all Apps

In the My Apps subsection you can update all your outdated installed apps with just a single click.

The summary on the right shows you how many Apps need an update in my case there are 20 Apps to update. and 17 that are up to date.

You can click on Start Updater to update all Apps.

Summary and start updater button Home Updater.
Apps updating Home Updater.

Update a single App

To update an individual app, click on the ‘Outdated’ button located at the bottom of the app’s interface.

Update single app Home Updater.

7-zip will be updated in just a few seconds.

app updating Home Updater.

When the app is up to date it will move to the other Up to date apps.

Apps up to date Home Updater.

App settings

You can change settings for each app individually; simply click the three dots to bring up a small menu.

App settings menu Home Updater.
Disable Scanning

In this menu, you have the option to ‘Disable Scanning,’ which will exclude the app from future Home Updater scans and prevent it from being updated. Alternatively, you can click on the ‘disable scanning’ icon.

Disable scanning options

To include the app in the scan once more, simply click on one of the ‘Enable Scanning’ buttons displayed below.

Enable scanning options
Disable Silent Installation

If you wish to view the setup screens when an App is updating, you can disable the silent installation for each app. To do this, go back to the App settings by clicking the three dots and then choose ‘Disable Silent Installation.’ You also have the option to click on the ‘Disable Silent Installation’ icon.

Disable Silent installation options

To reactivate Silent Scanning, simply click on one of the ‘Enable Silent Installation’ buttons displayed below.

Enable silent installation
Disable Auto Updating

If you prefer to manually update your apps, you can turn off the auto-update feature. This way, when you start Updater, it won’t automatically update these apps. To disable auto-updates go back to the App settings by clicking on the three dots, and select ‘Disable Auto Updating.’ Alternatively, you can click on the ‘Disable Auto Updating’ icon.

To reactivate Auto update, simply click on one of the ‘Enable Auto Updating’ buttons displayed below.

Reinstall App

To reinstall an app, return to the app settings by clicking on the three dots and choose ‘Reinstall App’.

The App will reinstall silently.

To view the reinstallation steps, begin by disabling the Silent Installation setting. Following that, proceed to reinstall the application.

Uninstall App

To uninstall an app with the Home Updater, simply navigate to the app settings by clicking on the three dots and select ‘Uninstall App’.

To view the uninstall steps, begin by disabling the Silent Installation setting. Following that, proceed to uninstall the application.

To Uninstall multiple Apps at the same time go to this section of this post.

App Library

Another excellent feature of the Home Updater is its built-in App Library, which offers more than 500 apps for installation.

With the filter you can show All Apps, Non-Portable Apps, or Portable Apps.

App library filter options

You can also switch the display of the apps between a list view and a tile view.

Searching for an app by its name can be done in the search bar located in the top right corner.

After finding the app you want to install simply click on Install.

Settings

You can customize the Home Updater settings to your preference. This section will detail the various options you can enable or disable. The settings are categorized into three sections: Technical, Appearance, and Download Options.

Technical Options

By default, the Patch My PC Home Updater does not automatically update outdated applications upon launch. To have outdated apps automatically updated after opening Patch My PC Home Updater, enable the setting below:

After enabling the setting and restarting Home Updater, outdated apps that are not excluded from scanning and have auto-update enabled will be updated immediately.

When updating applications, it is best to close the application if it is already open.
The setting: When updating an application, automatically close the application to avoid files being used is enabled by default.

To view splash screens while installing, uninstalling, or updating applications, simply disable the default setting below.

The Home Updater can be set to create system restore points before installing applications or updates. Simply enable the following setting if you wish to activate this feature.

If you wish to be among the first to receive beta versions of the Home Updater, then please enable the setting below.

By default, the Home Updater log file will be named PatchMyPCHomeUpdater.log. If you prefer the log file to bear the name of your computer, enable the setting below.

Appearance Options

After initiating the updater, the Home Updater screen will remain open. If you prefer the Home Updater to minimize automatically to the, enable the setting below.

The Home Updater will be minimized to the system tray, so the second option: Minimize to the system tray instead of the tastbar won’t do anything. I reported this issue on the Forum of the Home Updater.

Clicking the close button will naturally exit the Home Updater; however, if you prefer the updater to minimize to the system tray, please enable the option below.

Download options

If you have modified numerous default settings and wish to revert them to the Home Updater’s original defaults, click “Reset All Settings.”

Then click YES.

Uninstaller

Rather than uninstalling apps individually in the Apps section, you can multi-select apps and uninstall them simultaneously. Navigate to the Uninstaller section of the Home Updater to do this.

Simply multiselect the Apps you want to uninstall and select Uninstall selected.

Confirm you want to Uninstall the selected Apps by clicking YES.

To initiate the uninstallation of the applications, you must select ‘Uninstall’ on the splash screens.

If you want you can also create an CSV export of the installed Apps.

Scheduler

Like I mentioned at the start of this post: As IT administrators, we aim to automate the updating of applications on managed devices, and Patch My PC facilitates this. But wouldn’t it be convenient to automate updates on your personal device as well? The Scheduler feature in the Home Updater is designed to handle just that.

Set the Scheduler to ON, enter a TIME and a REPEAT, change options if you want, then select Save Schedule.

The Home Updater shows the create task:

The task is set up in the Root folder of the Windows Task Scheduler. Consequently, the Home Updater will execute daily at 11:00 PM, regardless of whether anyone is logged onto the device. Should the device be powered off at the scheduled start time, the task will run at the next available opportunity.

Open the PatchMyPCHomeUpdater.log to see information about the task and to check which apps have been updated or may have failed to update.

About

In the About section you can find info about the current version of the Home Updater, Read the release notes, check for updates and open the Logs Folder.

You wont have to manually check for updates every time, because the Home Updater also creates a Task to update the Home Updater.

Go to the support Forum if you have got questions or want to report a bug or request new features to the Home Updater. I already reported some issues so do check it out.

Support Forum: Get Support for Patch My PC Products and Services – Index

Conclusion

You now have access to a powerful tool that assists in keeping your installed applications up-to-date. You can configure the Home Updater to update manually or automatically according to your preferred settings.

For more information, visit the Home Updater website, check this intro from the Founder Justin Chalfant or sign up for the webinar on the Home Updater.




Theme: Overlay by Kaira