List of installed Apllications of Windows

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GianT
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List of installed Apllications of Windows

Post by GianT »

Hi guys, I would like to know how I can get the list of the applications installed on a computer using windows XP. The goal of this is to prevent some users from using them, or allow them to do it. Thx in advance
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Ryan Norton
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Re: List of installed Apllications of Windows

Post by Ryan Norton »

GianT wrote:Hi guys, I would like to know how I can get the list of the applications installed on a computer using windows XP. The goal of this is to prevent some users from using them, or allow them to do it. Thx in advance
See

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;314481

Basically its just a list of registry keys.

Keep in mind that some applications don't use their name for they key - they use a GUID {XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX} instead - for all apps the name of the installed applcation is in the DisplayName subkey.
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Post by Tyler »

If you end up writing the function GianT, please post it here or in the code dump. I think it would be usefull to have.

Thanks!

-Tyler
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Post by subnet_rx »

yes, please post it, I've often wondered how to do this.
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Post by eco »

If you are going to write one, wxRegKey will probably be of use (and is a lot easier than using the Win32 registry access API).
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Re: List of installed Apllications of Windows

Post by NinjaNL »

Ryan Norton wrote:See

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -us;314481

Basically its just a list of registry keys.
So how does a programmer cater for "old school" programs without a register entry?

There is no registry entry for Xnews on my computer (dual boot XP/2000) but this program should also be catered for shouldn't it?

I guess the crowbar method is to walk the directory tree and log all files with bat, pif, exe and com extensions.
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Ryan Norton
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Re: List of installed Apllications of Windows

Post by Ryan Norton »

NinjaNL wrote:So how does a programmer cater for "old school" programs without a register entry?
The registry has been around since at least windows 3.1 - if you mean dos programs then that would make sense :).
NinjaNL wrote:There is no registry entry for Xnews on my computer (dual boot XP/2000) but this program should also be catered for shouldn't it?
No, if the program does not put in the correct registry entries then it is not technically installed on windows - you should notify the vendor about this :).
NinjaNL wrote:I guess the crowbar method is to walk the directory tree and log all files with bat, pif, exe and com extensions.
That would be tough since a lot of apps, esp. dos ones, use lots of loader apps and bats. If you really wanted to you could file by directory - but that still could take a while for the directory traversing...
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Re: List of installed Apllications of Windows

Post by NinjaNL »

Ryan Norton wrote:
NinjaNL wrote:So how does a programmer cater for "old school" programs without a register entry?
The registry has been around since at least windows 3.1 - if you mean dos programs then that would make sense :).
Not only dos programs. There are oodles of windows programs which do not install their information with the register. These are predominantly installed via a compressed file, simply uncompress to a folder and run. No windows installer.
Ryan Norton wrote:
NinjaNL wrote:There is no registry entry for Xnews on my computer (dual boot XP/2000) but this program should also be catered for shouldn't it?
No, if the program does not put in the correct registry entries then it is not technically installed on windows - you should notify the vendor about this :).
Difficult since he doesn't seem to answer emails, and he is on record as saying that he won't make a windows installer version, just this one, but that is actually a moot point. The question was about listing installed programs to prevent or allow their use. I still contend that these programs should be catered for.
Ryan Norton wrote:
NinjaNL wrote:I guess the crowbar method is to walk the directory tree and log all files with bat, pif, exe and com extensions.
That would be tough since a lot of apps, esp. dos ones, use lots of loader apps and bats. If you really wanted to you could file by directory - but that still could take a while for the directory traversing.
No one ever said life was easy, and for most programs simply renaming the executeable would also be sufficient to circumvent a listing method such as this.

I still believe that treewalking is the only way to get the FULL list of installed programs (loaders et al) and would then require some method of checksum generation to identify specific programs which should be blocked.

Still a lot of work for the programmer.
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Re: List of installed Apllications of Windows

Post by Ryan Norton »

NinjaNL wrote:
Ryan Norton wrote:
NinjaNL wrote:So how does a programmer cater for "old school" programs without a register entry?
The registry has been around since at least windows 3.1 - if you mean dos programs then that would make sense :).
Not only dos programs. There are oodles of windows programs which do not install their information with the register. These are predominantly installed via a compressed file, simply uncompress to a folder and run. No windows installer.
Ryan Norton wrote:
NinjaNL wrote:There is no registry entry for Xnews on my computer (dual boot XP/2000) but this program should also be catered for shouldn't it?
No, if the program does not put in the correct registry entries then it is not technically installed on windows - you should notify the vendor about this :).
Difficult since he doesn't seem to answer emails, and he is on record as saying that he won't make a windows installer version, just this one, but that is actually a moot point. The question was about listing installed programs to prevent or allow their use. I still contend that these programs should be catered for.
Ryan Norton wrote:
NinjaNL wrote:I guess the crowbar method is to walk the directory tree and log all files with bat, pif, exe and com extensions.
That would be tough since a lot of apps, esp. dos ones, use lots of loader apps and bats. If you really wanted to you could file by directory - but that still could take a while for the directory traversing.
No one ever said life was easy, and for most programs simply renaming the executeable would also be sufficient to circumvent a listing method such as this.

I still believe that treewalking is the only way to get the FULL list of installed programs (loaders et al) and would then require some method of checksum generation to identify specific programs which should be blocked.

Still a lot of work for the programmer.
Good points 8) . I should note that what is in the registry is the "list of applications that have uninstallers" - the link to the uninstaller can be corrupt as often happens when uninstalls go bad :).
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