Hi Lisa, you can find answers and information on SCAL on their site which is craftedge.com.
When you open SCAL, there is a Help Menu on the top right - under that menu are several things for support and help. The first one is "About SCAL" and if you go there, it will give you your version number of what is presently installed on your computer, who it is licensed to (your name) ad the license number. On the bottom of that help menu, is also a "check for updates" selection. If you select that, it will go to craft edge's website and see if there are updates to what you have installed. Please note, sometimes it can return that you are up-to-date, when in fact that may not be the case. Also, it has occurred that on occasion, the download version will say its one number, when in fact, it has been updated and if you download and look closely it will give you a different download version number. Thus, it is always good to verify from time to time manually that you are up to date. (See information below.)
To manually check and download and get other help with SCAL you want to check out their website:
Their FAQ page can be found here in the support area:
http://craftedge.com/support/support.htmlTheir downloads page can be found here:
http://craftedge.com/download/download.htmlIf you click on SCAL 5 Pro, on that page, it says that the latest version is 5.008 for both Windows and Mac, if you then click on the "version history" it will tell you what changes/updates were made in each update released with version 5. Also be sure to check out the "extra downloads" section on the bottom of that popup to see if there is anything you would like to add.
As far as updating the software on your computer and whether or not it is done automatically, whether you get a notification, etc. - couple of notes - you will not get an email or anything from Craftedge letting you know when there has been an update to the software. You will
sometimes get a popup window when you up SCAL that tells you that there is an update and will give you the release notes and the option to skip, remind you later, or install now. I say sometimes because there are times when SCAL is updated and you will not get that notification. As a result, it is always good to go and verify for yourself if there have been any updates. As noted above, sometimes, they forget to update the download to reflect the number change so the only way to verify for sure, is to download the update. Also, quite often, someone will post a note here on the forum, or the SCAL support forum (which can be found here:
http://forum.surecutsalot.com ) that there is an update out, and whether or not the download says one number but is really a newer one.