Some deployment scripts need to check if certain required software is installed on a Windows Machine. You could check if a specific file is present at a certain location, but there is a better way: the uninstall database in the Windows Registry!
PowerShell makes it really easy to query the registry using Get-ItemProperty
. The path you want to query is HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*
.
Example: is .Net Core 3.1 Runtime installed?
Let's check:
$software = "Microsoft .NET Core Runtime - 3.1.0 (x64)";
$installed = (Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Where { $_.DisplayName -eq $software }) -ne $null
If(-Not $installed) {
Write-Host "'$software' NOT is installed.";
} else {
Write-Host "'$software' is installed."
}
The script is both readable and easy to understand.
Need something smaller?
If you really want to hurt yourself need something smaller, check this one-liner:
(gp HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*).DisplayName -Contains "Microsoft .NET Core Runtime - 3.1.0 (x64)"
Need to check a partial name?
If you need to match a partial name, you can use the -Match
option. But be careful: you might match more then a single installation! So we need to evaluate the result differently and do a -gt 0
to see if there are results.
((gp HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*).DisplayName -Match "Core Runtime - 3.1").Length -gt 0
Need to know the name of software installed? Use the same query to print matching results:
(gp HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*).DisplayName -Match "Core SDK"
PowerShell for the win!
1-2-3-4 I declare a 1-line war!
Sweet! Added it to the blog. Looks more elegant!
I am looking to do something similar to this but there are possibly multiple version/names of the software IE Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 *. How would I be able to check for an abbreviated name? Also Bonus is there a way to check if software is installed and if not to install.
You can check on partial names with a slightly different Powershell command:
((gp HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall*).DisplayName -Match "Core Runtime - 2.1.0").Length -gt 0
an even shorter and more effective method …
$Check=@(gp “HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall*”).DisplayName
if ($Check -contains “Target”) { Do stuff }
This method returns the keys under the registry path. Pipelining is great for a lot of things, but when you’re trying to check if a program is installed, and you have an array that you want to pipe through this, it’s better to replace “Target” with another array variable that you can state before the $Check command.
I actually truncated and added this function to a do loop and it works great.
Hi All
I need a PowerShell script that should look for the NET Core 3.1 SDK installed in the system, if not, installed it
Please help at the earliest
To query your programs just use: (gp HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall*).DisplayName -Match “Core SDK 3.1”