Checking and a Web-Browser is installed on Windows Server 2008/2012/2016

Question

I've trying to write a brief Powershell script which goes through a list of servers and checks if there is a web-browser or web-browsers installed.

I can query a list of installed applications using the following command however this doesn't show if Internet Explorer is installed on the server.

Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\* | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -like "*Internet Explore*"} | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DisplayName

Is there a better way to query a registery value for true/false if there is a browser installed?

Also is there a better way to get a list of installed browsers on Windows Server than using the "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall*". Is there an alternative registery location for web-browsers on Windows Server that can be queried?

internet explorer is built into windows so it wont show up in the registry key that you query...and yes registry query is the best way to determine installed apps — Kiran
Thanks Kiran. Are you aware of any Registery key that can give a true/false to any web-browsers being installed? — thal0k
I am not aware of any key tht would display a boolean but it is pretty easy to make your own...i will post it in the answer section.. — Kiran

Kiran Kiran · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-19T04:29:17

Function Test-RegValue
{
param([string]$RegKeyPath,[string]$Value)
    if(test-path $RegKeyPath)
    {
        (Get-ItemProperty $RegKeyPath).$Value -ne $null

    }
    else
    {
        $false
    }

}

Test-RegValue -RegKeyPath "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{8E3C7B5F-362C-440E-9895-726083B802E1}"  -Value displayname

If the root key exists then we check if the property "displayname" has a value. On my computer this 8E3C7B5F-362C-440E-9895-726083B802E1 reg key correponds to "node.js"

so just make a list of the reg key id's for various browsers and pass them as param values to regkeypath

Checking and a Web-Browser is installed on Windows Server 2008/2012/2016

1 Answers