Tips & Tricks

Finding & Interpreting Versions Numbers 1.0.1

Most programs hide their version number in their About Box. Not all programs have an About box, but most do. Just click the Help menu and see if there is an "About..." item.

Click that puppy and you should get all kinds of information about the program - including the version number.

As an added bonus, some About boxes have a little button that says "System" or "System info". Click that to get all sorts of information on your computer.

See, those About boxes aren't worthless after all.

Have you ever wondered what a program's version numbers meant? Well, your
questions will be addressed today :-)

OK, let's say we have program with a version number of 2.1.3 What does it
mean?

The first number (2) represents the "major" version number. Normally these
are only updated if there has been lots of major changes to a program.

The next number (1) represents a minor update. Maybe a feature or two was
added to the program, but the overall program remained the same.

The third number (3) represents a bug fix. Our example shows that version
2.1 has had 3 bug fixes so far.

To see what version a program is, hit the Help menu, About. Here's a sample:

In the example above, we can tell that this is the 2nd major version of the program. It's had one minor update and no bug fixes.

That's the gist of it. Some programs use letters rather than numbers,
especially for minor update and bug fixes.

Additionally, it's open to interpretation by the programmer as to whether
the current update constitutes a major version change or just a minor
enhancement.

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