Custom Inventory rules to find any device with 'Java' in a specific Reg key
I'm looking to see if there is a simple way to find a word in a specific registry key. For instance, I'm looking to find devices that have the word 'java' anywhere under the following subkey: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
Normally I would use a custom inventory to find a specific reg entry, but as this is more searching for reg entries, I don't think thats possible. I don't think custom inventory uses wildcards for things like this, and I was wondering if there is any recommendations for best practices for this. Thanks!
Answers (2)
fwiw in case others have a similar issue, my plan is to run a script to query the reg key and, if any results are found, output results to a text file. then do a custom inventory to detect (and read) that text file.
Top Answer
Are you just trying to determine what computers have Java installed and what version it is? Not all instances of Java will write to the uninstall area of registry, for example if it's bundled into a piece of software. We use this to pull the info...
ShellCommandTextReturn(cmd /q /c C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -command "Get-ChildItem 'C:\' -Filter 'java.exe' -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | ForEach-Object {$_.VersionInfo}")
(this is for the 64 bit agent. If you have the 32 bit agent still, change 'C:\windows\System32' to 'C:\windows\sysnative' in the Powershell file path. Or if you have mixed agent environment create a second Custom Inventory Rule, one with each path)
This will show you all versions of java and where the file lives. It checks all of the C: drive but it runs pretty fast.
If that's not what you're looking for, I guess what is your goal exactly by querying that area?