List of installed programs

Question

I use the search in the register and the Win32_Product class to get the list of the programs installed on the computer, but it doesn’t give all the programs, I’ve seen programs in C ++ that give the same results as in the programs and components of the control panel. Is there any api for python that can give me the same result. Here is the code for c ++ https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/6791/How-to-get-a-list-of-installed-applications That's what i use: import win32com.client

strComputer = "."
objWMIService = win32com.client.Dispatch("WbemScripting.SWbemLocator")
objSWbemServices = objWMIService.ConnectServer(strComputer, "root\cimv2")
colItems = objSWbemServices.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Product")
for objItem in colItems:

print("Name: ", objItem.Name)

And whis registry:

 aReg = ConnectRegistry(None, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE)
                    aKey = OpenKey(aReg, r"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall")
                    for i in range(1024):
                        try:
                            asubkey_name = EnumKey(aKey, i)
                            asubkey = OpenKey(aKey, asubkey_name)
                            val = str(QueryValueEx(asubkey, "DisplayName"))
                            b = "!@#$,01'"
                            for char in b:
                                val = val.replace(char, "")
                            r = len(val)
                            val = str(val[1:r - 2])
                            val2 = str(QueryValueEx(asubkey, "DisplayIcon"))
                            if s.lower() in val.lower():
                                r = len(val2)
                                val2 = str(val2[2:r - 5])
                                # print(val2)
                                subprocess.Popen(val2)
                                break
                            # print(val, val2)
                        except EnvironmentError:
                            continue

Mckenna

Not all applications require installation and so are not registered with the OS, so no matter what approach you take, you won't be able to find everything, short of scanning the entire HDD for EXE files. – Kingery

Make sure to read both 32-bit and 64-bit branches of SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. Flags are KEY_WOW64_32KEY to explicitly access the 32-bit branch and KEY_WOW64_64KEY to explicitly access the 64-bit branch. – Attic

@Attic don't those keys contain exactly the same thing? – Stunt

@RemyLebeau, even though this is technically an option, it's a bad business decision, as it will in most cases fall into delicate privacy regulations. Even if your app explicitly requires admin privileges, that's a drawback for commercial use. I suggest thinking twice about whether it's really necessary to get all the *.exe files on the system. Usually, it's not, and it's quite a demanding task for most common commercial laptops or PCs. Sometimes it's better to accept limitations 🤷🏻‍♂️ – Mcgrath

Answer 1

Slightly improved version that works without win32con import and retrieves software version and publisher. Thanks Barmak Shemirani for his initial answer :)

[EDIT] Disclaimer: The code in this post is outdated. I have published that code as a python package. Install with pip install windows_tools.installed_software

Usage:

from windows_tools.installed_software import get_installed_software

for software in get_installed_software():
    print(software['name'], software['version'], software['publisher'])

[/EDIT]

import winreg

def foo(hive, flag):
    aReg = winreg.ConnectRegistry(None, hive)
    aKey = winreg.OpenKey(aReg, r"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall",
                          0, winreg.KEY_READ | flag)

    count_subkey = winreg.QueryInfoKey(aKey)[0]

    software_list = []

    for i in range(count_subkey):
        software = {}
        try:
            asubkey_name = winreg.EnumKey(aKey, i)
            asubkey = winreg.OpenKey(aKey, asubkey_name)
            software['name'] = winreg.QueryValueEx(asubkey, "DisplayName")[0]

            try:
                software['version'] = winreg.QueryValueEx(asubkey, "DisplayVersion")[0]
            except EnvironmentError:
                software['version'] = 'undefined'
            try:
                software['publisher'] = winreg.QueryValueEx(asubkey, "Publisher")[0]
            except EnvironmentError:
                software['publisher'] = 'undefined'
            software_list.append(software)
        except EnvironmentError:
            continue

    return software_list

software_list = foo(winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, winreg.KEY_WOW64_32KEY) + foo(winreg.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, winreg.KEY_WOW64_64KEY) + foo(winreg.HKEY_CURRENT_USER, 0)

for software in software_list:
    print('Name=%s, Version=%s, Publisher=%s' % (software['name'], software['version'], software['publisher']))
print('Number of installed apps: %s' % len(software_list))

Antonina

Thanks for your answer, I hope one day I can complete my project. – Mckenna

Answer 2

Check both 32-bit and 64-bit registry using KEY_WOW64_32KEY and KEY_WOW64_64KEY. In addition, some installers will use HKEY_CURRENT_USER, although the latter is rarely used.

Note, pywin32's QueryValueEx returns an tuple, the first element in that tuple contains the required string. QueryInfoKey returns a tuple whose first element is the total number of subkeys.

def foo(hive, flag):
    aReg = winreg.ConnectRegistry(None, hive)
    aKey = winreg.OpenKey(aReg, r"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall", 
                          0, win32con.KEY_READ | flag)

    count_subkey = winreg.QueryInfoKey(aKey)[0]
    for i in range(count_subkey):
        try:
            asubkey_name = winreg.EnumKey(aKey, i)
            asubkey = winreg.OpenKey(aKey, asubkey_name)
            val = winreg.QueryValueEx(asubkey, "DisplayName")[0]
            print(val)
        except EnvironmentError:
            continue

foo(win32con.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, win32con.KEY_WOW64_32KEY)
foo(win32con.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, win32con.KEY_WOW64_64KEY)
foo(win32con.HKEY_CURRENT_USER, 0)

Beltran

Is there an option to find all of their exe modules that will allow them to run? I can get the name of the folder in which they are installed, but I can not get the exact name of the exe module ... – Mckenna

No, there is no way to do that reliably. You can check "DisplayIcon" to see if it's exe file, it probably points to the main app. The installer is required to put "InstallLocation" location in the uninstall key, the main exe (if any) could be anywhere in that folder. Some installers don't even follow the rule. – Beltran