Why no Single Update Program for Everything?

Here's kind of a general question, especially if any MS folks are looking in here. Why do we have to have fifteen bajillion different little applications all polling their special websites checking for updates? I have Windows update, MS Office update, Apple Quicktime update, Adobe update, one for my free File Renamer, lord knows what else. That's too many separate processes all doing basically the same thing.

Why can't we just have one update framework that everybody submits their little checker gadget to and at a preset time they all go out and check for updates in turn? Then you'd have just one process running instead of a bunch.

Andacar

Andacar said:

Here's kind of a general question, especially if any MS folks are looking in here. Why do we have to have fifteen bajillion different little applications all polling their special websites checking for updates? I have Windows update, MS Office update, Apple Quicktime update, Adobe update, one for my free File Renamer, lord knows what else. That's too many separate processes all doing basically the same thing.

Why can't we just have one update framework that everybody submits their little checker gadget to and at a preset time they all go out and check for updates in turn? Then you'd have just one process running instead of a bunch.

Andacar

Profit and co-operation. They would have to share data, programming code, and proprietary secrets.

Andacar said:

Here's kind of a general question, especially if any MS folks are looking in here. Why do we have to have fifteen bajillion different little applications all polling their special websites checking for updates? I have Windows update, MS Office update, Apple Quicktime update, Adobe update, one for my free File Renamer, lord knows what else. That's too many separate processes all doing basically the same thing.

Why can't we just have one update framework that everybody submits their little checker gadget to and at a preset time they all go out and check for updates in turn? Then you'd have just one process running instead of a bunch.

Andacar

Profit and co-operation. They would have to share data, programming code, and proprietary secrets.

You can always kill the processes in msconfig. Most are un-necessary anyway.

Ah, of course. I should have known. It's far too sensible. Thanks. It's a question along the lines of "why are there a bajillion different image file formats?" or "why can't there just be one metadata standard for everything?" etc...

Darrell Leland