Last accessed date and time of all the installed software

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5.00/5 (3 votes)

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Hai,

I am in the need of finding out the last accessed date and time of all the installed software in my machine. Please help me to find out. Thanks in advance.

Posted 10-Mar-11 21:52pm

JohnBrittoJ

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Dima Popov 11-Mar-11 5:17am

I doubt that it's possible. You can access the list of installed software using the registry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. As you can see it doesn't contain the information you need.

Tarun.K.S 11-Mar-11 9:06am

But if he could enumerate this list as FileInfo, then using that class, we can get these information. What's your say on this?

Dima Popov 11-Mar-11 11:12am

There are only uninstallers paths.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 11:25am

Dima, if you run the applet "Add or Removes Programs" you can change "Sort by" to "Date last used" of "Frequency of use". It means that the required information does exist.

A good question, I'll vote 5.
--SA

Dima Popov 11-Mar-11 15:35pm

Well, I knew that, but when I add this column in the Control Panel Programs, it's empty for all the programs. I thought that I could get the paths to executables from the registry, but only uninstallers have their paths set (more often it's msiexec.exe). Many programs do not have InstallLocation set, so that's my point. Good answer, but does that really work?

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 11:52am

I actually answered...
--SA

Tarun.K.S 11-Mar-11 13:21pm

That's exactly what is needed buddy! BTW i am a big fan of Russia(more of Soviet though!) :)

Dima Popov 11-Mar-11 15:37pm

Just run regedit and look at the paths, maybe it's just my baboushka computer :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 22:25pm

Dima, I did not exactly understand what you say about your baboushka, hope she is in a good health and keeps using computers; it does not much about regedit but about registry, reading it programmatically.
--SA

Dima Popov 12-Mar-11 5:35am

I didn't notice that you refer to "App Paths". So, I agree now that it's possible. But your answer is incomplete then. We must filter out preinstalled programs (that's easy as they use enviroment variables in their paths) and then group the executables by ProductName.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 12-Mar-11 15:16pm

I agree it should be done to make this code useful (and I did not figure out how to associate them). OP did not request this feature though.
--SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 22:23pm

Me too.
--SA

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-11T05:46:00

Solution 1

This is possible. Here is how:

First, you need to access all the to the file path names for every installed product. Use this Registry key to access the list of executable files:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

You can access Registry nodes using the class Microsoft.Win32.Registry.

For every child node of this node you will find executable file path name. Look at the properties of some of these files. The system property dialog will show some times, including one under the label "Accessed". Run the application and make sure this time changes to the time you run it. You can retrieve this time programmatically using System.IO.File.GetLastAccessTime or System.IO.File.GetLastAccessTimeUtc.

—SA

Posted 11-Mar-11 5:46am

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Updated 11-Mar-11 7:27am

v3

Comments

Espen Harlinn 11-Mar-11 12:17pm

Reasonable answer, my 5

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 12:25pm

Hope so, thank you, Espen,
--SA

Nuri Ismail 11-Mar-11 12:25pm

Good reply to this interesting question. 5 :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 12:26pm

Thank you, Nuri; it should work.
--SA

Tarun.K.S 11-Mar-11 13:17pm

Perfect answer 5d!. Exactly what i commented on the question. I should have answered this! damn!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 13:26pm

Thank you.
Sorry you did not answer. You did not give any certain information, unfortunately; I responded to Dima's idea that is would not be possible, because it is.
Sure, next time you won't miss :-)
--SA

Tarun.K.S 11-Mar-11 13:30pm

Hahahaa! Next time i shall be quick! :D

Tarun.K.S 11-Mar-11 13:44pm

Just what i thought, you are of Russian origin. I was going through your site and your work is amazing and mind blowing! Now i came to know that i am talking to a genius here! Awesome drawings too! I feel truly inspired by your work. :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Mar-11 19:18pm

Wow! Thank you very much, Tarun.
Too bad I don't have enough time to update the site and finish some works.
For example, drawings are many years old.
--SA

Tarun.K.S 12-Mar-11 13:19pm

Oh but whenever you get time do post your awesome drawings there. I shall regularly have a look at it! Nice family photos too, i think dima and i are of same age(just now turned 22)! That Flight photo is amazing! I viewed almost all the photos! Sir you have a tremendous resume, advanced technical knowldege, truly motivational stuff.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 12-Mar-11 18:00pm

Thank you, very nice of you.
Photographs are old, too. Again, I have much better pictures now, especially technically, with a professional camera and a lot of effort (like spending a whole hour and taking some hundred of pictures just for a single landscape photo), still did not take time to publish on site; I keep several thousands in the archive...
--SA

Tarun.K.S 13-Mar-11 13:09pm

Ohkay thats cool!

Tarun.K.S 13-Mar-11 13:14pm

So i was checking the registry path and found that the AppPaths will only contain softwares of Microsoft only. Is there any other workaround to include other non-microsoft products?

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 13-Mar-11 16:40pm

I just checked it. No, I have non-Microsoft as well. In the application is not properly installed, it's not there. But the way, I do prefer those with do not require installation, it's a good sign.
--SA