search for a program installation directory location?

[Burgs]

Greetings,

  I have a fairly straightforward question.  Is there a way to write  script that would search for and determine the location of an installed program on any particular client machine?  For example if I wanted to determine the location of a Gstreamer program installation on a client machine (for example if it is located in C:/Gstreamer directory where it normally would be...or not) is there some code snippet or command that would accomplish that?  I thank you in advance.  Regards.

[ScottW]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\notepad++.exe

Can you read the registry and pull the path from there?

$FileLocation=RegRead("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\notepad++.exe", "Default")
 

[Earthshine]

64 bit installed packages

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

32 bit installed packages

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Each entry has an InstallLocation associated with it. I use that on repairs of our products to know where to put the missing files during an installer repair operation.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Earthshine

[ScottW]

Nice to know.  I just did a quick registry search so your path is probably better

 

[Earthshine]

they both have their uses. for looking up where an app is, the app path is better/quicker

[Burgs]

Thank you for the replies.  I thought of checking the registry before, however was unsure if that would be 'fail proof'...not sure if all software installations display in the registry.  I suppose I could supplement that with a search using "FileListToArray" in case of failure to locate in the registry as a workable solution...thanks again to each of you!