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

Hope this helps somebody: I've been using the registry-based enumeration in my scripts (as suggested by some of the answers above), but have found that it does not properly enumerate 64-bit software when run on Windows 10 x64 via SCCM (which uses a 32-bit client). Found something like this to be the most straightforward solution in my particular case:

Function Get-Programs($Bits) {
  $Result = @()
  $Output = (reg query HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall /reg:$Bits /s)

  Foreach ($Line in $Output) {
    If ($Line -match '^\s+DisplayName\s+REG_SZ\s+(.+?)$') {
      $Result += New-Object PSObject -Property @{
        DisplayName = $matches[1];
        Bits = "$($Bits)-bit";
      }
    }
  }

  $Result
}

$Software  = Get-Programs 32
$Software += Get-Programs 64

Realize this is a little too Perl-ish in a bad way, but all other alternatives I've seen involved insanity with wrapper scripts and similar clever-clever solutions, and this seems a little more human.

P.S. Trying really hard to refrain from dumping a ton of salt on Microsoft here for making an absolutely trivial thing next to impossible. I.e., enumerating all MS Office versions in use on a network is a task to make a grown man weep.