Printing the program list

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Is there a way to print the program list from Windows Programs and Features?

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Hi chuckrau,

See if this MS Answers link is helpful to you.

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Deadeye,

Works nicely! I have one improvement to the instructions provided and that is to paste it into Excel {if you have it} it very nicely places the columns in A-B-C in Excel. Just widen the columns and/or delete ones you don’t need.:cheers:

Oops, not so fast…it only gives you program folders, i.e. Microsoft Office. It doesn’t list Word, Excel, PP, etc. The running tasks however has some very useful info you can do the same thing with.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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If you would like all programs, I think any number of third-party utilities will give it to you in one form or another. One I find particularly convenient is Revo Uninstall, either free or pro, which provides additional information such as the version number, the date installed, and so forth which you may include or exclude from the printable display by the usual means. Just bring up Revo and there it is. There may, however, be omissions if I recall correctly.

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Dogberry,

I can’t seem to find a print function in the Free version, could you point me to it?

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Dogberry,

I can’t seem to find a print function in the Free version, could you point me to it?

You are quite right, as I have just (re)discovered. I now recall that you have to take screenshots of the the list with the free version (the Snipping Tool is available from Start > Accessories in Win 7 if you don’t have another such tool) and you have to select Details view to see all the details that Revo will provide. This is very useful information. With Revo Pro there is a Print selection on the File menu, so there is no need for screen shots there.

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Run System Information. Expand Software Environment. Click on Program groups. You can print or copy/paste the results.

Jerry

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Download and run System Information for Windows (SIW.exe), There is a free edition, and it provides great detail about almost everything on a Windows PC, including the installed programs. Should print nicely too.

Note: If you run any kind of ad blocking you may have to disable it on the download page to get the free standalone version that does not actually install itself on your PC.

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Download and run System Information for Windows (SIW.exe), There is a free edition, and it provides great detail about almost everything on a Windows PC, including the installed programs. Should print nicely too.

Deadeye,

Right you are works great, suggest switching printer into landscape mode though.:cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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I absolutely agree, RG. All the fields have to be shortened to view the listing in portrait mode. You can also create an HTML report file with the free edition. I wish the CSV report file was also available in the free edition as well. :cheers:

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Just for fun, here is a PowerShell 1-liner that creates a CSV file of the installed apps. Open the out.csv file in Excel and print.

get-wmiobject -class “Win32_Product” -namespace “rootCIMV2” | sort Vendor | select-object Vendor,Name,Version,InstallDate,InstallLocation | export-csv “out.csv”

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CafedOOd,

Very nice! I’ve purchased a couple of books on PowerScript and am working my way through them. This will give me a good example to work my way through. It works great, a little formatting in Excel and you have a very nice list for reference purposes.:cheers:

Additional Info: After printing the list I checked it against the one I had done by a previous method and also the list in Revo Uninstaller. I don’t know why but several programs were not on the list:
BelArc Advisor
Aracnophilia
Brother HL-5270W printer software
Foxit Reader (although it did list the IFrame addon)
HyperSnapDX – Screen Capture program.
Microsoft Money 2006
FireFox 5.0
Google Chrome (finds the Google Talk plug-in though)
PDFCreator
Picasa 3
PrimoPDF
Revo Uninstaller
RoboForm

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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This thread got me interested so I did some googling and comparing with some, at least I thought so, results.
I found an interesting PowerShell script, via google, and modified it slightly then compared it with the results from the original PS script posted here, Windows Programs & Features, and Revo Uninstaller. The attached Excel sheet shows the results. Only Windows Programs & Features (Win P&F) and the expanded script in box below found all 60 items on my computer. both Revo , which seemed to miss 64 bit software but is supposed to be 64bit compatible, and the original script came up short of full results. Interestingly the original script provided multiple lines for some programs, e.g. Windows SDK 7.0, and alternate names for others like Microsoft Malware Client for MSE.

Comments, script modifications, etc. ?:cheers:

In the worksheet the list of programs (DisplayName Column) is the one provided by the script below and was used to compare to the other providers.

Code:

if (!([Diagnostics.Process]::GetCurrentProcess().Path -match ‘\syswow64\’))
{
  $unistallPath = “SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall”
  $unistallWow6432Path = “SOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall”
  @(
  if (Test-Path “HKLM:$unistallWow6432Path” ) { Get-ChildItem “HKLM:$unistallWow6432Path”}
  if (Test-Path “HKLM:$unistallPath” ) { Get-ChildItem “HKLM:$unistallPath” }
  if (Test-Path “HKCU:$unistallWow6432Path”) { Get-ChildItem “HKCU:$unistallWow6432Path”}
  if (Test-Path “HKCU:$unistallPath” ) { Get-ChildItem “HKCU:$unistallPath” }
  ) |
  ForEach-Object { Get-ItemProperty $_.PSPath } |
  Where-Object {
    $_.DisplayName -and !$_.SystemComponent -and !$_.ReleaseType -and !$_.ParentKeyName -and ($_.UninstallString -or $_.NoRemove)
  } |
  Sort-Object DisplayName |
  Select-Object DisplayName,InstallDate,InstallLocation | export-csv “out.csv”
}
else
{
  “You are running 32-bit Powershell on 64-bit system. Please run 64-bit Powershell instead.” | Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red
}

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Geek,
I believe Revo Pro is 64-bit-aware, while the free version is not.

Zig

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Geek,
I believe Revo Pro is 64-bit-aware, while the free version is not.

Zig

That is correct Revo (free) only sees and uninstalls 32 Bit apps whereas Revo Pro uninstalls both 32 Bit and 64 Bit apps. Absolute Uninstaller(free) also is capable of uninstalling 64 Bit apps. Generally I like the UI of Revo Pro better.

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I added the ability to specify the output file name, included the version and publisher in the output, and got rid of the first line that contains the type name:

Code:

param (
  $out = “out.csv”
)
…
   Select-Object DisplayName,DisplayVersion,Publisher,InstallDate,InstallLocation | export-csv -notypeinformation $out
…

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You can run Belarc Advisor downloaded from http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

This will give you information about hardware of your system, security updates status, product keys and a list of all program installed with a link to its location on the hard disk.

This is a Free Program FOR PERSONAL USE.

arvind kelkar

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Great suggestions for installed programs (I’ve always liked Revo Uninstaller’s presentation the best; too bad you can’t print with the freebie).

Although it’s not direct to the question, I’ve got quite a few portable programs that I also locate in the “Program Files” folder (XP), and create shortcuts to from the “Start–>Programs” (XP) menu. Since they don’t get installed, they won’t show up using the suggestions above. I plan to move to Win 7 from XP this fall, and a handy way to help remember those portable programs–and how I organized them–is to use Karen Kenworthy’s Directory Printer:

http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp
It’ll create a right-click context menu entry (“Print with DirPrn…”) in Windows Explorer that you can use to print the file and folder structure (including printing various file and folder attributes, if you want that stuff) of any selected folder. For example, I’ll print the following folder…

C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuPrograms [“Start–>Programs,” for XP]

…along with the individual user profiles’ Programs folders–which will list all of the program shortcuts (including user-created shortcuts to portable programs) and the folders they are located in.

A couple tips:
1. Be careful not to select root folders (such as C:) or any folder with a large number of subdirectories or files, as your printer may gasp for paper and toner!
2. The print dialog box doesn’t have a button that links to you printer’s device driver options (like most programs do); so you may need to adjust you print driver’s defaults (if you don’t like them) from the Control Panel prior to printing.

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Well, I use the best file cleaner out there which also cleans out the registry and also prints the list in text format for you – CCleaner! Open CCleaner, click on Tools and click on “Save to Text File”.

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Not to throw a monkey-wrench into this thread, but many “programs” are not installed, but act as portable apps or per-user gadgets and such. These will not be shown in any of the listing methods mentioned so far in this thread. Perhaps SIW or Belarc may detect them, but the other methods probably do not. I am not sure whether my favorite free program updates manager, SUMO Lite (No RK) lists the majority of these stand-alone apps, but I don’t think it does either.

-- rc primak

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Bob,

How right you are. I just checked the script and it does NOT find Double Driver which is a standalone/portable program. But then again neither does Belarc or SIW:cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Hear, hear! I have a ton of stuff on my PC that none of these mechanisms locate!

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There is not any direct way to print directly print from Control panel,
But you can export the information to an Excel file and print the information there.
To get the control panel information in Excel file you need to fetch the data via WIN product class.
Read this example to know how to export control panel to csv

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If this is a one-time or time-limited requirement, don’t forget that you can download a trial version of Revo Pro.

If you go into (Win 7) Control Panel in Category View, you will find Uninstall A Program at the bottom left, and it will display a list of all programs (I haven’t looked for the exceptions noted above), with useful details including the icon. Windows own Snipping Tool can be used to take screen shots of it a page at a time, which is far from ideal, but it’s swift and simple, and already built-in.

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Hey Y’all,

In case you’re interested here’s the latest version of my PowerShell program.

Code:

param (
  [string]$DestPath = "G:BEKDocs",
  [string]$DestFilename = "InstalledSoftware"
)
[reflection.assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")| Out-Null


if (!([Diagnostics.Process]::GetCurrentProcess().Path -match '\syswow64\'))
{
  $unistallPath = "SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall"
  $unistallWow6432Path = "SOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall"
  @(
  if (Test-Path "HKLM:$unistallWow6432Path" ) { Get-ChildItem "HKLM:$unistallWow6432Path"}
  if (Test-Path "HKLM:$unistallPath" ) { Get-ChildItem "HKLM:$unistallPath" }
  if (Test-Path "HKCU:$unistallWow6432Path") { Get-ChildItem "HKCU:$unistallWow6432Path"}
  if (Test-Path "HKCU:$unistallPath" ) { Get-ChildItem "HKCU:$unistallPath" }
  ) |
  ForEach-Object { Get-ItemProperty $_.PSPath } |
  Where-Object {
    $_.DisplayName -and !$_.SystemComponent -and !$_.ReleaseType -and !$_.ParentKeyName -and ($_.UninstallString -or $_.NoRemove)
  } |
  Sort-Object DisplayName |
  Select-Object DisplayName,InstallDate,InstallLocation | Export-csv -notypeinformation -Path "$DestPath$DestFilename.csv" -Force

  [Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Data written to $DestPath$DestFilename.csv","Completion Status", `
      [Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons]::OK, [Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon]::Information)

}

else
{
  [Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Data will be written to $DestPath$DestFilename.csv","Program In 32 Bit", `
      [Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons]::OK, [Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon]::Information)

  "You are running 32-bit Powershell on 64-bit system. Please run 64-bit Powershell instead." | `
     Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red
}

Calling sequence once at the PowerShell command prompt either cmd line version or ISE.
.BEKInstalledSoftware.ps1 -DestPath d:path -DestFilename

You’ll need to at least supply the -DestPath parameter as it is currently set to default to G:BEKDocs which I’m sure doesn’t reside on your computer. :o: The file name will default to InstalledSoftare so you only need to change that if you don’t like it. The file type will be .csv no option here! HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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It can easily be done by using CCleaner.

Tools…uninstall and on the bottom right corner “save to text file”

Lists installed programs, install date, size and version.

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in Command RUN type “msinfo32”:

In opened dialog click on “Software environment” then tap “program groups”, So you can have copy of the list now.

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