How to get a complete list of all installed programs in Windows

Yes, there are several ways to get a list of all the programs that we have installed on our Windows computer.

As you may have already read in the introduction, this can come in handy if it is necessary to reinstall the operating system or even find out what programs we have on the computer and make sure that none of them escape us and what we do not want. what was that. Sometimes on the computer itself it looks worse when scrolling down with the mouse wheel.

We may have programs that were installed for testing and never used again (this happens often). The problem is that with as much memory at our disposal as we have today, many of these programs can go unnoticed and continue to install, despite the fact that they are not useful for anything.

The worst thing is not that they are still installed, the worst thing is that they work in the background and, on top of that, take up system resources.

If we have a complete list, then perhaps we will see everything much more clearly than if we only watched them on the screen, moving it with the mouse from top to bottom, which may lead to some program going unnoticed.

We are going to see how we can get these lists to have all the information about the programs installed on our computer.

List of programs with PowerShell

We are going to use the Powershell tool to get a list of all those programs that we have installed on the computer, and thus be able to check that they are all absolutely necessary.

To do this, we must follow the following steps:

• Click on the magnifying glass next to the start button on the Windows 11 taskbar and write powershell.
• Next, we are going to click on the match that appears just below to open that part of Windows.
• Once opened, we must write (we recommend copy and paste) the following command: Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* |
• After installing it, we must click To come in.
• The PowerShell window will now show all the programs we have installed, as well as the version, developer name, and first boot time.

Now we need to export the text we see on the screen to a file.

We have to scroll to the bottom of the list where we see PS C:\ followed by our usernameto do the following:

• To the right of the > symbol, copy and paste the following: Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Select object display name, display version, publisher, install date | Format table – AutoSize > C:\Users\???\Documents\InstalledPrograms.txt
• It is very important to replace the file path and document name with the data of our computer. This is the area that should be placed with our data C:\Users\???\Documents\InstalledPrograms.txt
• After that, you will have a text file with all the programs that you have installed on your computer.

If we did all this because we are going to reinstall Windows, it would be very interesting to be able to compare the document before reinstalling the operating system with the document after this fact.

Well, there is a way to compare two such files:

• we are reopening PowerShell as we told you above.
• Now we have to write this command (copy and paste if you can) always with information about where specific files are located and what they are called, as usual: Compare-Object -ReferenceObject (Get-Content C:\Users\anyro\Documents\ InstalledPrograms.txt) -DifferenceObject (Get-Content C:\Users\anyro\Documents\InstalledPrograms2.txt)
• Now we push To come inso that later let’s see a list of both, side by side.
• in a column Side indicatorEast symbol => it means that it is installed on the second, but not on the first and vice versa for <=. sign = displayed if the app is installed on both.

We may use third party programs

To get these lists, you can also use third-party programs that we have to install on the computer, such as Computer uninstaller or Uninstall View.

Geek Uninstaller, in addition to being a program to uninstall any program on Windows, can be used to export a list of all programs installed on the operating system.

We chose Geek Uninstaller because getting a list of programs is so easy that even installing this tool can be satisfying, although it can be shocking at first if we want to uninstall the entire system.

Press only the combination Ctrl+S keys and a file with programs will be automatically generated. After that we press File, Archive and we choose Export to HTMLso we already have it on the computer, ready to open it whenever we want.

As you have seen, this is a simple, fast and easy way to get this list, which is why many people prefer to do it with this program.

The other option we have is UninstallView. In this case, we will have more opportunities to create the resulting file, since this can be done in the formats .xml, .txt, .csv and .html.

The level of information will also be higher, since we will be able to find out much more data than what the previous version gave us.

To get the list we have to go to view menuthen click on Select columns.

We currently have to choose what information we want you to provide to us. We think it might be worth it name (display name), version (DisplayVersion) D when it was installed (date of installation).

Next, we return to Look and select from the dropdown list Repost in HTML format – all the time.

A file will automatically be generated and a browser will open so we can see the results and save the information. As you can see, this is a simple and very fast way to get a list of all installed applications.

These are the best ways we have, one of them is from Windows itself to not install anything and the other two depend on programs that we have to download and write to our computer’s hard drive.

You can tell us on our social networks which one you liked the most or the one you yourself have used. We will be glad to hear from you, your opinion and even if you have any questions, we will try to solve them.