USSU Unlimited is an open source tool which can help you to install standard programs on a PC, then detect and download updates as they appear.

The program can manage 45 common applications. There are standard runtimes (Flash, Java, Adobe AIR), browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari), assorted security tools (Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Avast, Avira, AVG), and plenty of desktop essentials (Adobe Reader, VLC Media Player, Google Earth, Paint.NET and more).

When you first launch USSU Unlimited, it displays the status of all these applications across various tabs. You'll be able to see whether a program is installed and up-to-date, installed but missing a patch, or not yet installed at all. If you'd like to enable management for a particular application then it's just a matter of clicking the "On" button, while clicking "Start" will download and install whatever you've selected.

The program doesn't always quite work as it should. We had installed Flash and 7-Zip on our test PC, for instance, but USSU Unlimited didn't spot that and claimed they were "not installed". This isn't a fatal problem - if an application isn't detected properly then you can just continue to manage it manually - but it's still a small concern.

For the most part, though, USSU Unlimited works very well, and if you need to manage several PCs then it could save you a lot of time.