WMI “installed” query different from add/remove programs list?

Question

Trying to use WMI to obtain a list of installed programs for Windows XP. Using wmic, I tried:

wmic /output:c:\\ProgramList.txt product get name,version


        

Answer 1

I have been using Inno Setup for an installer. I'm using 64-bit Windows 7 only. I'm finding that registry entries are being written to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

I haven't yet figured out how to get this list to be reported by WMI (although the program is listed as installed in Programs and Features). If I figure it out, I'll try to remember to report back here.

UPDATE:

Entries for 32-bit programs installed on a 64-bit machine go in that registry location. There's more written here:

http://mdb-blog.blogspot.com/2010/09/c-check-if-programapplication-is.html

See my comment that describes 32-bit vs 64-bit behavior in that same post here:

http://mdb-blog.blogspot.com/2010/09/c-check-if-programapplication-is.html?showComment=1300402090679#c861009270784046894

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to get WMI to list all programs from the add/remove programs list (aka Programs and Features in Windows 7, not sure about Vista). My current code has dropped WMI in favor of using the registry. The code itself to interrogate the registry is even easier than using WMI. Sample code is in the above link.

Answer 2

With time having moved on quite a bit since this question was asked...

There's a WMI class available these days for the Uninstall entries in the registry. This is much quicker to reference than Win32_Product, which I think also runs verification on the list and can take a while to enumerate. The below Powershell code (possibly requires Powershell 3 or later) will list all entries (The Out-Gridview part is just for a pretty display).

Get-CimInstance Win32Reg_AddRemovePrograms | Out-gridview

Answer 3

I believe your syntax is using the Win32_Product Class in WMI. One cause is that this class only displays products installed using Windows Installer (See Here). The Uninstall Registry Key is your best bet.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

UPDATE FOR COMMENTS:

The Uninstall Registry Key is the standard place to list what is installed and what isn't installed. It is the location that the Add/Remove Programs list will use to populate the list of applications. I'm sure that there are applications that don't list themselves in this location. In that case you'd have to resort to another cruder method such as searching the Program Files directory or looking in the Start Menu Programs List. Both of those ways are definitely not ideal.

In my opinion, looking at the registry key is the best method.

Answer 4

You can get it in one line with powershell and batch file :

@echo off
Powershell /command "Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Publisher, InstallDate | Format-List"
Pause

Answer 5

Add/Remove Programs also has to look into this registry key to find installations for the current user:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Applications like Google Chrome, Dropbox, or shortcuts installed through JavaWS (web start) JNLPs can be found only here.

Answer 6

In order to build a more-or-less reliable list of applications that appear in the "Programs and Feautres" in the Control Panel, you have to consider that not all applications were installed using MSI. WMI only provides the ones installed with MSI.

Here is a short summary of what I've found out:

MSI applications always have a Product Code (GUID) subkey under HKLM\...\Uninstall and/or under HKLM\...\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products. In addition, they may have a key that looks like HKLM\...\Uninstall\NotAGuid.

Non-MSI applications do not have a product code, and therefore have keys like HKLM\...\Uninstall\NotAGuid or HKCU\...\Uninstall\NotAGuid.