Installed Applications?

[Igor Peshansky]

On Sat, 17 Jun 2006, Richard Foulk wrote:

> > On Sat, 17 Jun 2006, Richard Foulk wrote:
> >
> > > Aloha,
> > >
> > > I'm looking for a good way to determine the software packages
> > > installed on a machine.
> > >
> > > We're hoping to do this remotely on a network of clients by mounting
> > > a client's drive and rummaging around.
> > >
> > > Is there an easy/reliable way to do this with Cygwin?
> >
> > If you've set up sshd on the remote machine, 'ssh MACHINE "cygcheck
> > -cd"' ought to do it.  Otherwise, looking at the drive is probably not
> > going to get you anything reliably (in a way that's guaranteed to
> > always work). For a non-portable hack using the current settings, look
> > at the source of the Cygwin setup program.
> >
> > Incidentally, most software leaves traces in the registry, at
> > well-known keys, so the easiest way to check for it is look in the
> > registry (as it may actually be installed anywhere).  The same is the
> > case with Cygwin (look for "HK(LM|CU)/Software/Cygnus
> > Solutions/Cygwin" -- even though the mount information might be moved
> > out at some point, the key itself will probably stay around).  Though
> > how you intend to browse the registry on a mounted drive is not very
> > clear.
> > HTH,
> > 	Igor
>
> Thanks very much for the response.
>
> This is a large network of clients.  We're hoping not to have to install
> more software on all the clients to monitor them.
>
> Cygwin is a tool on our administrative machines.  (Which is serving us
> well in this capacity so far.)

Whoops, sorry, I misread your question.  I thought you were asking whether
there is an easy way to detect whether Cygwin is installed on the client
machines...

But again, as I said, most Windows software is usually detectable via the
registry, and I don't know of an easy way to read remote registries off a
mounted disk using Cygwin.  Unless your remote machines are Linux, in
which case you might be able to point some packaging tool in Cygwin (e.g.,
rpm, or apt) to the appropriate package database on those machines and use
the query mechanism.  But I'm not very familiar with either apt or rpm, so
you'll probably have to read some manuals to get the exact incantation.
HTH,
	Igor
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