Get installed software information

[IUnknown]

Hi, can anyone please help me?

I am working on a program for retrieving information on installed
software on a local machine, I use MsiGetProductInfo and other
windows installer API-s to retrieve the very data I need,
but using these msi apis I retrieve only the data for the
software installed by Windows installer, most of the software I need
is installed with InstallShield, how can I retrieve these
software information, installed with InstallShield ?

Take for example, I have ,let's say, Visual Studio 6.0, now I need
to programmaticaly get information on that product, like full name, vendor
name, product id, etc. I have no information on that product in the system
registry SOFTWARE key, neither any information in the msi database( via
using MsiGetProductInfo ) as this software was installed with InstallShield,
now can I have access to the InstallShield database and if so how?

Will be very grateful if any suggestions.

Thanks.

[IUnknown]

Well, kinda funny, answering my own posts, but however..
It comes there is no seporate databases or kinda messy things like that,
msi API -s are just simplified way of woking with the registry, all of the information on the installed products is kept there, but those not coming with Windows Installer are sometimes located under various keys, not under the ones they should logicaly be.

[techni68]

Glad you answered your own question..because if any of us run into this issue we will know what to do. Thanks.

[hoser2001]

There are two locations where you find information on installed software:
MSI Installed & Normal Installed.

I can't remember if this information is only accessible through the registry, or if you could use WMI to get it.

[Patrick]

I think MSI is a win32 application. What about CGI files will it not interrupt MSI extension functioning if they exists in that folder because I faced such problem before also.

[slattery9]

I don't mean to crash your forum but I landed here on a search. My question is, how can I find my software product code for a program I installed 2 years ago. I have a new computer, the old computer, and the original disk but not the original label with the 25character code? I figure it's in there somewhere. Thank you.