Re: Using WMI to List all Locally Installed Software from C#
- From: "mayayana" <mayaXXyana1a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 19:40:00 -0400
only relates to software installed via Windows Installer
(using an MSI database file). Even Microsoft rarely
uses MSI files.
Actually, nearly all Microsoft/Adobe products are installed/configured
using the MSI, even when a product starts with a setup.exe program, it
nearly always uses MSI behind the scenes; e.g.
Microsoft Office Products since 2000
Visual Studio
SDKs and DDKs
I guess it depends a lot on what you use and where
you're checking. On a corporate intranet I can see how
using WMI or WindowsInstaller.Installer might be
a good way to check on, say, MS Office installs, but
it's not of much value if someone really wants to get
a list of what's actually installed. Firefox doesn't even
use MSIs.
On my own system I have a great deal of software
installed. The only MSI installs, other than SDKs and
a couple of drivers, are my CD writer software and
OpenOffice. Everything I've downloaded from MS in
recent years has been an SFX CAB with an SFX ZIP
inside. (But I also haven't bought any MS software
for a very long time. I've never used their Office products
and have no use for any of the .Net stuff.)
These days, I don't bother walking the registry because it's all
available with MSI. The exceptions are "Windows Components" and that's
probably deliberate on the part of Microsoft to prevent people
uninstalling their useless IE browser and useless Media Player. The
really stupid thing, is that Microsoft disabled the MSI provider for WMI
in Windows Server 2003, but it appears to be back in Vista/2008??
--
Gerry Hickman (London UK)
.
- References:
- Re: Using WMI to List all Locally Installed Software from C#
- From: Gerry Hickman
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