Inventory Software

Cheap and easy to setup. It's not an inventory software, it's a Helpdesk complete solution, which has a wonderfull inventory software and remote control.
You can download a trial version from www.trackit.com
Note: It won't retrieve serial numbers of installed products, but once you have the list on what machines is that software installed, you can retrieve it's license numbers.

Hope it help!!

If you are on a novell network then zenworks for desktops 3 will do the inventory also it will run on nt servers. I like a software called lanauditor and there is a 25 node trial version availible for imediate download from http://www.lanauditor.com/
It is very cheap and you can purchase it for one time use or multiple uses

I use "belarc advisor" www.belarc.com
It provides a list of all software and hardware on a computer. Since I only manage a small number I just use the free download and run it from the server onto each machine. As the others mentioned here, it willnot give you serial numbers of software installed but it does give some juicy details as to what hardware and software is there.
As for duplicate installs on a network, as long as you have the licenses, you can install the same copy on all your machines so you do not have to worry about that.
Good luck!

Mike

We are using trackit , www.tracit.com, for 2 years now with very good results.
We can track software and hardware statistics (whats installed, % hd used , type processor, etc. With a little tweaking you could even install it via a login script or let the users install it, and you can retrive the data.
There is a demo at the site.

If you're like most of the I.T. Professionals we speak with, you're always looking for ways to reduce your costs and increase the efficiency with which you:

Manage the endless flow of work orders.

Track warranties, service contract expirations, and software upgrades.

Track the configurations of particular PCs, how much training your end-users have had, who has equipment checked out on loan, how much you've purchased from particular vendors, and so on.
You could try to create a custom tracking system using a mainstream package like Access, Excel, SQL, or Oracle, but that's an uphill battle, and it's not cost-effective.

You could spend tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars on complicated software solutions with steep learning curves, or you can choose Track-It! - the quickest and easiest path to reduced costs and a more efficient Help Desk.

Tightly Integrated Modules

Track-It! is a fully scalable and Web-enabled PC management system with tightly integrated modules for Help Desk, Inventory, Auditing, Remote Control, Purchasing, Library, Training, Reporting, 3D Graphing and more.

It also includes Track-It! Audit, which automatically inventories DOS, Windows, Windows 2000/98/95/NT and OS/2 PCs for hardware configuration, software, LAN information and startup files.

Leopold