Registry path to find ALL the installed applications

Question

I have a fast question: IS there any other places in the registry but this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

where I can find the installed applications of a system? I am asking that because for example IExplorer is not in none of those registers. Where else have I to look?? I need ALL the places where a application that is installed can be.

Thanks for your help ;)

Answer 1

Your most reliable option is probably to use Windows Management Interface (WMI) to enumerate the software installed by Windows Installer.

See Here
Enumerating Installed Software
Win32_Product class

Note that this does not guarantee that Internet Explorer is going to show up there. I think you can safely assume that Internet Explorer is going to be present on every Windows computer currently out there; Microsoft views it as part of the operating system.

You can, however, find out which version of IE is installed.

Answer 2

The paths in the question don't include the apps installed on a user level.

They are in the same location, but under HKEY_CURRENT_USER instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

So in total:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

But as you can tell, HKEY_CURRENT_USER only applies to the current user.

To access all the users there is the HKEY_USERS registry root, which has a folder for each user.

So instead, you need:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

for each user sid under HKEY_USERS:
  HKEY_USERS\<user sid>\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
  HKEY_USERS\<user sid>\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

P.S. If you want to match between a user's SID and its name, you can look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<user sid> for the key named ProfileImagePath, which should equal C:\Users\<user name>. Not all users have this key, I think these are system users or something which you don't want to touch.