Network Software Audit (FREE?)

[Xcalibur]

I'm looking for either a free network software audit utility, or I would like to know if there is a file, or place in the registry that stores records of installed software. Nothing extremely in-depth. I have experimented with the demo's of many of the commercial programs, and they basically scan for all exe's on the machine. I'm really just looking for everything on the Add/Remove programs list. The commercial versions of this sort of software seem very user friendly and versitile, but I'm managing a 40-50 PC network and I will only be auditing like once a year. Every quote I recieved from the commercial companies had been anywhere from $600-5000. If I knew where the add/remove programs list was, I could write something to gather the data. I simply need to collect the list of installed software (most likely from add/remove list), but on 40-50 PCs. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Smilin]

HKLM\software\microsoft\windows\uninstall might be the key you're looking for.

I believe Gasp makes a limited free version available. Its the same software used by the BSA for auditing - it kinda sucks tho.

 

[Xcalibur]

Thanks. I tried the GASP demo. It does suck though. It scans for almost ever exe on the machine. I also just tried Tally Systems WebCensus. It did everything I want, nut so much more. I ran a free webscan demo, and this would be ideal to go PC to PC and print these, but the only problem is we have an internet filter on our firewall so only particular machines have internet access. =(

 

[Smilin]

I've researched a ton of these auditing packages and most of them have one problem in common:

They collect so much data including exe's com's dll's etc that you have to spend serious time scrubbing the data to get anything useful out of it. The only company I've seen with a decent solution to this is Absolute software. Basically you run some client software that does the auditing and whatnot but the data gets sent to Abosute via the 'net. They do a good part of the data scrubbing on their end and the reports that become available (via their website) are a bit more managable.

The most affordable package I've seen that isn't complete junk is Visual Audit Pro. They'll do a unlimited licenses at a single site for $500. We've got something like 30 sites here but when I called their corporate sales they were willing to let us run for $2000 since a good number of our sites are quite small.

If you decide to do something home-grown, checkout kix32 (if you're not already using it). It's a script language that makes a nice supplement to login scripts and includes things that allow you to snag registry keys and also some features that allow it to write to files - used in combo you can do some simple auditing during login and have the results appended to some file you place in a share.


edit: I've not seen webcensus. I'm gonna have to look that one over too.


God I hate gasp. It's some of the crappiest software I've ever seen next to RealOne and JetAdmin. How they use this software to perform audits that stand up in a court of law is beyond me.

 

[Nothinman]

We wrote an in house perl program to do this, it scans all the machines for every exe on them and gets the version info from the executable and puts that into a database then we have a web front end to display the data. It only took us 2 weeks or so and part of that was learning parts of perl the main 'developer' and I hadn't used before.

 

[Xcalibur]

Thanks guys. Keep em comin. Any input is greatly appreciated. I am awaiting a call from a sales rep at Tally Systems (Maker of WebCensus). I'm predicting now that the estimate will be at least 600$. If this is the case, I'll most likely just open up the firewall and go PC to PC running the free WebCensus demo.


EDIT: BTW, does anyone know of any IT IRC channels, or IT chat or anything? I am always looking for an IT hangout kind of where IT pros can help each other out. I know this is very similar, but sometimes the waiting game can drive me nuts.

 

[Nothinman]

There are some channels on irc.arstechnica.com, I usually hang out in #linux but I don't know how applicable that'll be for you =)

 

[Xcalibur]

well im usually on irc.linux.org in #linuxhelp or something but im looking for more of an IT channel and not just Linux. Ya know? Any reccommendations on audit software would be greatly appreciated. I think I may ask the president to buy some, but I'll need to research it a little more before asking him to spend $600 on software. I am trying to avoid useless ones like GASP that present every exe on the PC. I'm looking more for something that simply does the information gathering. From that point i can put it in a DB, analyze it, execute changes, etc. I'm really not looking for stuff that is so decked out that it automatically disables non-approved software, runs automatically, etc. Although I have seen that some of the variations of this sort of software support usage feature which tell you where the software is actually being used and how frequently. This would be helpful, but not necessary. Thanks again guys!

 

[Smilin]

capture that registry key I mentioned above with kix32 in your login script - you'll get a list of everyone's "add/remove programs".

 

[Xcalibur]

Thanks smilin. I'm heading over to Luxembourg to our HQ for 2 and a half weeks so while I'm there I'm going to present some of the options. If from that point they decide that they don't want to purchase software, I'll give kix a shot. Thank you very much again.