Listing of Software Installed

[zelynn goay]

Hi. Is there a way to list all the software installed on a computer, including the name, location installed and version installed?

thank you for any guidance.

regards,
zelynn

[Jeffrey Spaulding]

Plus the shoesize of the installing person and - if it's a girl - whether there were High Heels involved?

No i fear this can't be done.

J.
[ May 12, 2005: Message edited by: Jeffrey Spaulding ]

[Paul Sturrock]

Well, it should be possible - Windows (if that is the OS we are talking about here) does it. There is a list of software included in the Registry - and reading the Registry is easy enough via C. So you could do it with JNI. I suspect this is the sort of thing you could find an open source API for - try some Googling.

[Jeroen Wenting]

No. That list is maintained my MSI (the windows installer). An application installer can choose whether or not to get itself listed on it.

There's NO way to find out every single thing installed on the machine. If I for example unpack a zipfile somewhere and that is all the installation required (as is often the case) nothing gets added to the list.

[Paul Sturrock]

If I for example unpack a zipfile somewhere and that is all the installation required (as is often the case) nothing gets added to the list.

Strictly, in Windows parlance, such an application is not "installed". If you do indeed define an installed application as any executable in the file system, well I agree, that's going to be difficult to do.
[ May 12, 2005: Message edited by: Paul Sturrock ]

[zelynn goay]

hi all. thanks for the reply.

well, if in windows, there's the add/remove program that show the listing. i want to get the same list if possible.

May I know how to read the registry? will it be the same for all platform?

regards,
zelynn

[Stefan Wagner]

No.
On the linux plattform there are different installers, like rpm (RedHat/ Fedora) and apt (debian), but lot of people install from source-tarballs without listing installed software somewhere.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Paul Sturrock:

Strictly, in Windows parlance, such an application is not "installed". If you do indeed define an installed application as any executable in the file system, well I agree, that's going to be difficult to do.

Even if so (which I don't agree with, installing means getting it onto the machine in such a way that it can be used), installers aren't required to register themselves in the list of installed applications.
And it's possible to manually edit the list and remove entries.