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

[chris128]

Yeah that's fine and certainly secure, I just think it would be really useful with an app like that to be able to tell it to launch a custom action (e.g a script or executable) so that you don't have to recompile and redeploy the app whenever you want it to do something that it doesn't already do.

[JFoushee]

This code is great!... but with Server 2008 onward, Microsoft has changed the way the OS reports Installed Updates.

After some research, I'm able to get the non-OS Installed Updates (MS Office hotfixes, SQL Server Service Packs) using this code:

(This goes inside Private Shared Function InternalGetInstalledPrograms, between the lines "Next" and "'Close the registry keys")

'-- Windows 2008 - JFoushee (2/2012)
Dim key As RegistryKey = HklmPath.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\")
Dim strTemp As String = key.GetValue("CurrentVersion").ToString()
If IsNumeric(strTemp) Then
    Dim dblReturn As Double = Convert.ToDouble(strTemp)

    If dblReturn >= 6.0 Then
        '-- Windows 2008 non-QFE Patches
        Dim Win2K8PatchKey As RegistryKey = HklmPath.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products")
        ProgramList = Get2008NonQFEPatches(Win2K8PatchKey, HklmPath, ProgramList)

        'not sure how to get QFEs by Registry

    End If

End If

and this is a new function to go in the "Private Methods" region:

Private Shared Function Get2008NonQFEPatches(ByVal SystemKey As RegistryKey, ByVal HklmRootKey As RegistryKey, ByVal ExistingProgramList As List(Of InstalledProgram)) As List(Of InstalledProgram)
    ' addition provided by JFoushee (2/2012). No warranties/guarantees.

    If Not SystemKey Is Nothing Then

        Dim LmProductGuids() As String = SystemKey.GetSubKeyNames
        For Each LmProductGuid As String In LmProductGuids

            Dim InstallPropKey As RegistryKey = HklmRootKey.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\" & LmProductGuid & "\InstallProperties")

            If InstallPropKey IsNot Nothing Then

                If Not CInt(InstallPropKey.GetValue("SystemComponent", 0)) = 1 Then
                    Dim ParentName As String = CStr(InstallPropKey.GetValue("DisplayName", String.Empty))
                    Dim Vendor As String = CStr(InstallPropKey.GetValue("Publisher", String.Empty))

                    Dim PatchesKey As RegistryKey = HklmRootKey.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\" & LmProductGuid & "\Patches")

                    If PatchesKey IsNot Nothing Then
                        Dim LmPatchGuids() As String = PatchesKey.GetSubKeyNames
                        For Each LmPatchGuid As String In LmPatchGuids

                            If Not CInt(PatchesKey.OpenSubKey(LmPatchGuid).GetValue("State", 1)) = 2 Then
                                Dim Name As String = CStr(PatchesKey.OpenSubKey(LmPatchGuid).GetValue("DisplayName", String.Empty))

                                Dim InstallDate As String = ""
                                Try
                                    InstallDate = CStr(PatchesKey.OpenSubKey(LmPatchGuid).GetValue("Installed", String.Empty))
                                Catch ex As Exception
                                End Try

                                If Not Name = String.Empty AndAlso Not IsProgramInList(Name, ExistingProgramList) Then
                                    ExistingProgramList.Add(New InstalledProgram(Name, ParentName, True, "1", Vendor, "", "", InstallDate))
                                End If

                            End If

                        Next
                    End If
                End If
            End If

        Next

    End If
    Return ExistingProgramList
End Function

Now, if someone could figure out the Windows 2008 OS-level hotfixes from the Registry...
(Yes, I 'could' use WMI's Win32_QuickFixEngineering... but then I have two security points-of-failure if someone blocked WMI access.)

[chris128]

Cool thanks for the additions - I never spent much time on getting the updates (as mentioned in the original post) so even on XP it wasn't giving the correct results for that, as I was only ever really bothered about getting the installed programs rather than installed updates.

[Midomoi]

Miss list of update which have a "This update cannot be removed" info type.

[WishWell]

Is there a way to get more information about each product such as the publisher(or vendor) and installed location

[chris128]

Miss list of update which have a "This update cannot be removed" info type.

Yeah like I said, I didn't spend much time on getting the update detection to work properly cos I was only interested in programs not updates

[chris128]

Is there a way to get more information about each product such as the publisher(or vendor) and installed location

Yep, and I think someone else already asked in this thread about it. Just look at the source code and find the places where it is getting values like UninstallString, Version, SystemComponent etc etc from the registry and in there you need to get the Vendor value (or whatever its called, look in your own registry to find out).

[jmb555]

Hi!

I'm trying this one to check for OS Hotfixes(updates) that are installed on my machine. I found out that there are some missing updates and duplicate entry.

Duplicate:


Missing:


Anyway, Cool app!

[kitrafael]

Hi Chris128,

Firstly, this app is really awesome! It helps me a lot when i need to trace what apps was installed in the labs.

I have questions here, still using the 'UserDataKeyName' and im interested to populated the 'publisher' of all apps installed and how could we do so? if possible, i need to flag with a check box like what you did for 'include updates' and 'only show updates'.. then the 'publisher' data will shown in the Forms.ListView

Can you help with this?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks!
kitrafael

[chris128]

Hi!

I'm trying this one to check for OS Hotfixes(updates) that are installed on my machine. I found out that there are some missing updates and duplicate entry.

Duplicate:


Missing:


Anyway, Cool app!

Yeah like I've said before, I didn't really ever concentrate on the update side of things as I only ever wanted the list of programs (not updates) - that was just a bonus really because it looked like it was fairly easy to do, but evidently its not working quite right. If you want it to reliably get all of the updates installed then you'd have to look at the code and see where it is going wrong and why it is picking up duplicates

[chris128]

Hi Chris128,

Firstly, this app is really awesome! It helps me a lot when i need to trace what apps was installed in the labs.

I have questions here, still using the 'UserDataKeyName' and im interested to populated the 'publisher' of all apps installed and how could we do so? if possible, i need to flag with a check box like what you did for 'include updates' and 'only show updates'.. then the 'publisher' data will shown in the Forms.ListView

Can you help with this?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks!
kitrafael

Like I've said before in this thread, if you want to get the publisher then just change the code so that as well as reading the DisplayName and Version registry values it also reads and stores the Publisher value. If you follow the code through its fairly obvious where it is actually reading and storing the display name and version values so just add another line in there to grab the publisher value.

EDIT: wow over 5000 downloads of this library now (and not many complaints). Hope it is helping people out

[meow]

1st thanks a bunch chris128 its a great program. Thanks again. I have a question is it possible if I want to know 2-3 specific program such as microsoft office is it intalled or not , adobe pdf is installed or not?

If so can you please provide sample code ?

Best regards

[chris128]

Just loop through the list that my code gives you and check to see if it contains the program you are looking for. I'm not going to show you how to loop through a list, because that's very basic programming and if you're unsure how to do things like that then you should go through a few beginners tutorials

[anoble1]

Now is there a way to remove programs from this? I wonder how you could do that?

[sachinnpanchal]

Hi Chris,

I looked into your example and working like exactly like Windows (I would say more better then windows because windows sometimes duplicates programs whereas your program didn't).

But I have one problem, code is in VB.Net. I like to do same thing in c#. but when I convert your code from vb.net to c# (using online conversion tool) it gives wrong output in c# version. I compared both code it is same way written in c#. but although don't know why it is not correctly working. It would be great if you can upload C# version.

I can't you DLL of your code (I gives prefect in c# if I use VB.Net dll). I need that class to be in c#.

Any help appreciated.

Regards,
Sachin

[chris128]

Hi Chris,

I looked into your example and working like exactly like Windows (I would say more better then windows because windows sometimes duplicates programs whereas your program didn't).

But I have one problem, code is in VB.Net. I like to do same thing in c#. but when I convert your code from vb.net to c# (using online conversion tool) it gives wrong output in c# version. I compared both code it is same way written in c#. but although don't know why it is not correctly working. It would be great if you can upload C# version.

I can't you DLL of your code (I gives prefect in c# if I use VB.Net dll). I need that class to be in c#.

Any help appreciated.

Regards,
Sachin

Sorry I don't really know C# at all so can't help you. You'd probably be better off asking on a C# forum than a VB forum

[sachinnpanchal]

Hi Chris,

I resolved problem in C# code. it was a problem in reverse function. If any one wants see please download attachment.

One more thing chris, I want to develop one small utility to find out problems in Registry like (CCleaner). Do you any idea for this kind of thing?
Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,
Sachin

InstalledProgram.cs

[jariz_01]

sir,need help for our thesis pruposal, we need to scan installed software from a network in just one clicking the scan button,,

can u help us? we cant find codes, we search night and day but we got lost

[Zeev]

Thanks for the code, it is very helpful.
I understand that it takes information from the registry, which only contains program name. But is there any possible way to get also the executable path? Thanks!

[stefan52a]

can u use this to uninstall programs? like in xp when you double click the program?

icons would be cool too

Just to say thanks for the code, I am not a vb wizard, but changed the test program a bit to include the uninstal strings, and added a sample program to uninstall 1 program based upon its display name.

[stefan52a]

Just to say thanks for the code, I am not a vb wizard, but changed the test program a bit to include the uninstal strings, and added a sample program to uninstall 1 program based upon its display name.

O yeah, forgot to tell works fine in windows 8.1 as well, but have to run as administrator.

[technonaut]

Wow, this is fast and works in Windows 10 if you Run As administrator. Unfortunately, for about 25% of my programs, it doesn't return the version number even though I can see the version number in the normal Apps & Features program list.

The values can be found in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

and I recommend retrieving them from there. I checked and, in all cases where it was missing from what your program showed me, the version information could be found in the above registry section.

[ArthurDent]

Hi there. I'm Arthur Dent, like the thousands of others with that name. I used to code in VB6 now I'm teaching myself VB.Net.

I've had an app idea using the code from Chris128, I thought I'd share with you. Just check the list to see if there are any games in there, by comparing each item to a list of Windows games.

From there on in, I could probably get the path to the executable, if the game properly registered itself with Windows.

Before all that, I've got some exercises to do from the book I've just read.

Anyway, nice to make your acquaintances!

PS. Does anyone ever "Add software" using that interface? I've never used it like that..Arthur.