Definition of Updates Update-Upgrade

Unlike purely mechanical machines, those that have nothing but gears and physical parts, practically everything that includes software can be updated.

The updates provide corrections to bugs that have been found in the software, new functionalities, or aesthetic and functional improvements

We can distinguish between these updates, two types, according to the English words update Y upgrade.

A update performs an update considered "minor", understanding that it does not result in a great advance in functionalities, but is limited to correcting errors detected, plug security holes and, at most, add some functionality generally promised at the time of the commercial launch of the product original

An example classic from update are the famous Service Packs of Windows XP.

These packages of software brought together a whole series of patches of safety, bug fixes, and expanded the system with some secondary programs and functionalities.

In any case, they could never be considered as the step towards a new version of the operating system.

With the upgrade the jump is made to a new version of the program, operating system or firmware that is being updated

Here we must make it clear that the upgrade is not the installation from scratch of a new operating system or program, but rather it is a software that is installed on the one that is already present in the system, to update it.

Thus, the Windows 10 download system for Windows 7 and 8.x users can be considered with all of the law a upgrade, since it updated these systems to a new version of the platform.

Each company producing software has its own policy on updates

For example, within the Linux world we have Canonical (producer of the popular distribution Ubuntu) whose politics is to launch two new versions a year.

These can be downloaded as upgrade for a system that has previously installed a previous version of the system, so that it updates it by migrating it to the new version.

Between versions, small updates are released from time to time, usually caused by bugs discovered in any of the elements that make up the operating system or in the programs that accompany.

These updates can also be downloaded and installed using the tools incorporated in Ubuntu itself, and constitute a update.

At the other extreme, Debian's policy was, until recently, not to have a calendar fixed, but release a new version when the developers thought it was ready.

Photos: Fotolia - Stuart Miles / Antonioguillem

Topics in Updates Update-Upgrade