Thanks for the advice, Johnny! I have thousands of miles thrusting the NavPilot 500, and I don't see reasons to change, but I would love to have the feature of it engaging in a wind direction. I guess it shows up in version 3.01; mine is still 2.03. Also, I think that a few times I might have bumped into one of the bugs fixed in the following versions. The compass changed the heading pretty quickly for no reason. This last issue was only 3 events in 7 years. I am not even sure if the software is the cause. The main objective would be to have auto by wind direction.
I don't want to risk my Pilot, of course. I have studied computer sciences in college and have some shallow understanding of electronics. Looking at the updating instructions and the RS232 cable wiring needed to be connected on TB4, I felt confident. If it is really risky or expensive, I think it doesn't worth it for me. I thought about uninstalling it, sending it to our Furuno guys here in Brazil, but I didn't think it worth the effort too.
I knew that some board versions are not upgradable too. Looking at the two flash SMD chips on my board (64P1140), I am feeling lucky, but of course, I am not sure.