Piriform makes some of the best free Windows utilities around, and issues new versions on a regular basis. But although the programs will alert you to the new builds, they won't update automatically -- you'll have to download and install the latest versions yourself.

CCAuto Updater is a compact and portable tool that can change all that. In a click or two you can have the program launched when your PC boots, or schedule it to run at the date and time of your choice. It then checks for updates to CCleaner, Recuva, Defraggler and Speccy, silently downloading and installing any new builds it finds, finally displaying a pop-up alert to tell you of the upgrade when the process is complete.

The program worked well in our tests, silently updating our Piriform installations with the latest builds whenever it was launched. And it managed this while consuming very few system resources. The program files themselves require less than 500KB of hard drive space, for instance, and any scheduling is done via Windows Task Scheduler, so there's no RAM-resident component to consider.

CCAuto Updater does have some irritations and annoyances, though. The scheduler window looks unfinished; the Help menu "Documentation" link doesn't point directly at any documentation; and it's strictly updates-only: the program doesn't provide any way to automate the installation of your favourite Piriform tools on a new PC.

Still, the core functionality works well, and the author is apparently looking at extending it in some interesting ways with an upcoming beta 2.0 version, for example by auto-updating CCEnhancer, too. If you're a Piriform fan, then, CCAuto Updater could already save you some update hassles, and it may also be worth checking out the beta when it arrives to see what other features have been added.