Example of how to get a list of installed programs (like Add and Remove Programs)

[max_carpenter]

You should be starting a new thread not replying to this one.

This is exactly what I am working on at the moment for our Internal Asset Management system. There are two ways to go about it:

1: (The route we are taking): Have a client peice of software on each machine that collects details and sends back to a central server. Useful if you just want a database of machines with details - this method can also get alot of information.

2: Use Remote WMI to get the information you want. Note you will need permissions to access the other machine. I have used remote WMI but only within a Domain Environment and I have Domain Admin rights.

There is probably other methods but these are the two ones that jump out at me.

Hope this helps. If you want to discuss it further create a new thread in the vb.net forum.

[[email protected]]

Thanks I posted a new thread to show you what I am looking for.

[chris128]

2: Use Remote WMI to get the information you want. Note you will need permissions to access the other machine. I have used remote WMI but only within a Domain Environment and I have Domain Admin rights.

Yeah WMI can be a little unreliable because a lot of admins don't allow it through their workstation's firewalls or simply disable the WMI service.

The other method that I have used in the past is a variation on your first method - rather than having a piece of software actually installed and always running on the workstations, we just run the program from a network share via logon script that is assigned to all users. This way it runs whenever anyone logs on to a PC (so we also get a record of when anyone logged on and which PC they logged on to) and updates the general system info in a central SQL database

[max_carpenter]

That is similar to what I have built (and currently rebuilding) at my place although it doesnt run with logon scripts.

My old package ran as a windows service on each local machine and got all the information I required including last logged on user and lots of WMI information then compiled an XML sent it back to the server for a server service to read the xml and enter it into the database.

The new one is slightly differnts its a windows forms app that runs on startup for every user, still collects all the same information but then connects to the server using sockets to send all the info back. The reason its a windows forms app because italso acts as a server monitor for users to see status of all our services and for us to display messages to the user etc.