List programs instaled on users PCs

You can find a bunch of wks auditing tools; Computer Associates makes a nice app, but what I have done is run a audit from a simple batch file. Wrights out to a file based on MAC address, compile the files, and put into a database. This is a lot cheeper, and just as good as many of the auditing tools I have used in the past. If you want some info on the cheep route, let me know.

I have had the need to gather this information as well as perform remote access of PC's. I recieved a Track It (www.BlueOcean.com)demo cd and was able to capture a PC's hardware and software information and in some cases the licensing info. We also have a database program we purchased from a company in CA (I am in WV)and the company uses PC Anywhere to remotely control one of our PC's and I believe this program will gather the software information also. NetOp is another well know program forgathering this info...it doesn't have the remote capabilities though.

We use SMS, but the information it provides on software is somewhat unhelpful. For example, it tells you that someone has word.exe, but you have to extrapolate which version it is from the creation date.

There are tools which sit on top of SMS tohelp here.

One tool I've tried on a single PC is Belarc Advisor(WWW.BELARC.COM), which does a good job of giveing useful information about software versions. They do have an enterprise version.

James

If you are using Novell NetWare there is an add on called ZenWorks that does PC auditing of hardware and software as well as remote control.