Windows PowerShell® 2.0 Bible

CHAPTER 6

Managing and Installing Software

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding WMI

Using WMI to list software

Using the Windows Registry to list software

Getting software onto your computer

Removing software from your computer

Microsoft has not added any cmdlets to Windows PowerShell specifically intended for software management. However, the language does provide several interfaces to the operating system that allow for software management. This chapter covers three aspects of software management:

• Taking inventory of installed software
• Installing new software on a system
• Removing software from a system

There is usually more than one method to accomplish each task, so this chapter demonstrates the different methods. As each topic is covered, I point out the strengths and weaknesses of each method.

Listing Software

The first software management task in your environment is to determine what software you have installed. This chapter covers two alternative methods for retrieving software installed on your systems: Windows Management Instrumentation and the Windows Registry.

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is Microsoft's implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM) standards for systems management as defined by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF, www.dmtf.org/standards/cim). The WMI environment is an object-oriented environment in which entities are represented as classes with properties and methods exposed, depending ...