Agent for collecting information about installed programs on a computer system

• US 20050160421A1
• Filed: 02/18/2005
• Published: 07/21/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Stephens, Maoni, Bluvshteyn, Vadim, Heinz, Steven S., Carroll, Mark S., Munsil, Donald J., Sciacqua, Michael, Lupu, Corneliu
• Application Number:
  US11/060,983
• Publication Number:
  US 20050160421A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment

Abstract

A standard reporting schema to represent applications and other information on a computer in a hierarchical manner, such as via an XML (extensible markup language) file. An agent or engine is provided to inventory a computer for installed applications or services and to output a report, or log file, conforming to the schema standard. A calculation may be performed on a subset of attributes stored in the log file for an application or a service so as generate a signature representing the subset. The signature may be stored with the log file, and may be accessed quickly in a database to determine whether or not the application is a particular application, or, if more particular resources are defined, to determine more specific information, such as whether the application is a particular version or run of the application.

Claims

1. A computer system, comprising:

an agent, the agent comprising;

an installed programs enumeration component configured to enumerate software items on the computer to find installed programs;

an executable enumeration component configured to enumerate software items on the computer to find executables that are associated with installed programs found by the installed programs enumeration component; and

an information grabber component configured to gather information on the computer about the installed programs found by the installed programs enumeration component.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the information grabber component is further configured to gather information about the executables.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the installed programs enumeration component utilizes places, tools, or devices that a user utilizes to access a program, or a subset thereof, to find installed programs on the computer.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the agent searches a folder in which an installed program is found to find other executables that may be associated with the installed program.

5. The computer system of claim 4, wherein, in the process of searching the folder, the agent determines, for items in the folder, whether the items are defined by the agent to be an executable.

6. The computer system of claim 5, wherein the items are defined by the agent to be an executable by one of more of an evaluation of file type or an evaluation of an extension.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the installed programs and executables are stored in a file by the agent.

8. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the file is an extensible markup language file.

9. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the file includes a hierarchical list having a number of installed programs containers, each installed programs container including an installed program and associated executables for the installed program.

10. The computer system of claim 1, wherein associated executables are found via walking an import table for an installed program.

11. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

enumerating software items on a computer to find installed programs; and

for each installed program, storing information about the installed program in a file along with information about executables linked to the installed program.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein enumerating software items comprises enumerating executables in a shell folder on the computer.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein enumerating executables in a shell folder comprises:

if a software item is a folder, recursing the folder;

if the software item is a link, getting the path and argument for the link; and

if the software item is a file, storing the information about the file.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein finding installed programs comprises utilizing places, tools, or devices that a user utilizes to access a program to find installed programs on the computer.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising searching a folder in which an installed program is found to find executables that may be associated with the installed program.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the file is an extensible markup language file.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the file includes a hierarchical list having a number of installed programs containers, each installed programs container including the installed program and the associated executables.

18. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

utilizing places, tools, or devices that a user utilizes to access a program, or a subset thereof, to find installed programs on a computer; and

storing information about the installed programs in a file.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the file is an extensible markup language file.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the file includes a hierarchical list having a number of installed programs containers, each installed programs container including the installed program and executables associated with the installed program.