Windows Installed Software Inventory

The 20 Critical Controls provide a guideline for the controls that need to be placed in our networks to manage and secure our systems. The second control states there should be a software inventory that contains the names and versions of the products for all devices within the infrastructure. The challenge for a large number of organizations is the ability to have accurate information available with minimal impact on tight IT budgets. This paper will discuss the Microsoft Windows command line tools that will gather this information, and provide example scripts that can be run by the reader.