Spiceworks detects uninstalled programs as installed

iainelrick7139 · 2009-12-03T05:03:40.000Z

Hi,

My Spiceworks installation is used to collect data on user PCs. We need to use the tool for software audit purposes.

The problem is that we have recently upgraded a number of machines to Office 2007, Office 2003 was un-installed prior to this on the relevent machines. However, Spiceworks still picks-up Office 2003 packages as being installed and tells me the product key.

I have run CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller and the Microsoft uninstaller clean-up utility, reset the machine removed from Spiceworks, re-detected machine and the uninstalled Office 2003 packages were still listed as installed by Spiceworks.

Does anyone know how the software detection is done by Spiceworks so I can remove the erroneous information and get information from Spiceworks rather than incorrect data?

TIA

Iain_E

scottalanmiller · 2009-12-03T06:03:41.000Z

Iain, Office is known to be a problem with leaving lingering bits behind, although you have gone through the steps that normally fix that problem. Any chance that you are running an incremental scan? If so, disable that and scan again.

If SpiceWorks picks it up again, it is very safe to assume that Office is still listed as installed. We’ve seen this a lot and SpiceWorks has been right every time thus far.

iainelrick7139 · 2009-12-03T07:08:58.000Z

Thanks for the reply Scott but incremental scan is/was disabled.

Do I need to enable incremental scanning and disable again I can’t remember if incremental scanning was ever configured - but if it was would I need to stop and start services to allow settings to change?

iainelrick7139 · 2009-12-03T10:39:42.000Z

Is there any chance that the 4.5 beta would resolve this issue?

scottalanmiller · 2009-12-03T11:23:57.000Z

No chance. The scan is almost certainly correct (as in, we’ve never seen it wrong before.) What is happening is SpiceWorks is giving you more information than the OS is and there really is that software listed someone as installed. It is just a matter of finding where that data has been left behind.

Keep in mind that this is not a problem with SW but with Office. So there is no fix to come from the SW side. Most of us would be pretty upset if SW voluntarily reported inaccurately to “fix” a problem from Microsoft’s side. We want to know when things have been completed uninstalled and that nothing is going to report them as still being installed. “Fixing” it would constitute the intentional creation of a bug in SW.

Ben-B-Spiceworks · 2009-12-03T16:42:32.000Z

Hi Guys,

Iain sent us an email at support, and we are taking a closer look.

Usually the relevant registry keys are:

32bit & 64bit OS’s:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

64bit OS’s:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

However, Spiceworks uses a special method to pull the Product Keys for Microsoft Office and Windows products, and this looks into a different area of the registry. Mind you this would only apply to Windows/Office products.

It is more likely, however, that there is a scan problem. It is possible that the remote devices have some of the “old” information still stored in their WMI repositories. This only comes into play when the remote device is not being scanned via WMI, but by SNMP instead. Seems backwards, I know.

Anyway - we are still working on this one right now, but thats where we stand - either the remote devices are being scanned by SNMP (where WMI is appropriate) or Spiceworks is still finding Office information in those “other” registry hives.

kyleharris1145 · 2009-12-07T09:27:02.000Z

I too am facing this same issue. In my case, I have several computers that show MS Office 2003 as being installed and it absolutely and positively is not installed. I have searched with numerous apps and even searched for the files that belong to Office 2003 and again, they are not present. However, it was at one time so I suspect Spiceworks is still finding remnants of it. I have also checked the registry setting mentioned above and it doesn’t show up their either. As, Ben’s mentions above, there is obviously other places where Spiceworks looks for installations. I’m glad to see this is being worked on and I look forward to a solution, hopefully in the near future…

Thank you.

Ben-B-Spiceworks · 2009-12-08T10:32:30.000Z

Hi Kyle,

It looks like the Spiceworks finder code that searches for product keys found Office installations outside the uninstall keys (the normal location).

Check the registry hive below for Office installation information: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office[Office version, could be 10, 11, 12, etc.]\Registration

If you find multiple versions in the Office hive that explains why you are still seeing the old versions of Office in the Software Inventory.

dick99953914 · 2010-05-03T14:34:46.000Z

Ben,

I’ve been having the same issue - it reports over 500 installations of Office 2003, but we don’t have any anymore… I went to the various registry locations -

HKLM\software\microsoft\office\11

I deleted the whole key at that level - no difference on rescan.

Did a search for the Office 2003 Key that was reported in spiceworks, never found it in the registry…

I guess I could you a little more help hunting down the offending registry keys to cleanup the inventory

MarkT94 · 2011-02-02T15:24:46.000Z

I had this problem as well, and SW was kind enough to let me know that I still had keys for 2k3 Basic installed after I updated a few machines to Pro (or vice versa). Going into HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\11\Registration, I found an entry for both Basic and Pro. Delete the entry for the one I uninstalled (Add/Remove misses this), and the inventory entry disappears. I have had to do this quite a bit to make sure we were not out of compliance on our licensing.

I checked with Keyfinder to make sure the license was gone before I reran the SW scan. Just in case.

Hope this helps.

wenhsieh8682 · 2011-04-13T17:20:46.000Z

hi Mark tinder,

i have the same situation, except this is on a Microsoft windows server 2003 R2.

i already remove MS Office from the Add/Remove program.

is it safe to delete the registry per your instructions?

scottalanmiller · 2011-04-14T15:55:28.000Z

wen5333 wrote:

hi Mark tinder,

i have the same situation, except this is on a Microsoft windows server 2003 R2.

i already remove MS Office from the Add/Remove program.

is it safe to delete the registry per your instructions?

Yes

sergeadam2359 · 2011-11-30T09:29:05.000Z

That is still an issue. Spiceworks 5.2 still reports Office 2003/2007 as installed when it is not. Belarc Advisor on the same machine does not report the software installed.

I need a product that will return results I can trust.

Ben-B-Spiceworks · 2011-11-30T17:47:55.000Z

Hi Serge,

Did you take a look in the registry for one of these devices to determine where the remaining registry keys are?

32bit & 64bit OS’s:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
64bit OS’s:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
Office installation information
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office__[Office version, could be 10, 11, 12, etc.]__\Registration

So far that has been the cause of misreported Office installations - Windows still has registry keys that report the software is installed.

We won’t always report the same information Belarc or other software inventory systems report.

sergeadam2359 · 2011-12-01T07:34:56.000Z

No. And quite frankly, I don’t have the inclination to hunt every registry key when I uninstall a product.

Ben-B-Spiceworks · 2011-12-01T09:54:35.000Z

You’re right - you shouldn’t have to do this.

If we have a better idea of why this is happening in your environment we should have a better idea of how we might be able to improve the way Spiceworks detects software.

It sounds like Office left behind keys in one location, but removed them in the other.

Would you be willing to take a look at the registry to find out?

sergeadam2359 · 2011-12-02T06:19:38.000Z

The uninstall hive is gone, but the office version hive in hklm/software/microsoft/office is still there.

scottalanmiller · 2011-12-02T06:22:25.000Z

Wow, zombie thread.

Ben-B-Spiceworks · 2011-12-02T17:11:45.000Z

Gotcha, so you’re seeing keys for both Office 11 and Office 12, is that right?

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Registration
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration

These should correspond with Office 2003/2007.

Can you tell me a little more about the installation and uninstallation processes for these two packages? i.e. retail CDs, MSI packages form network shares, uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs, uninstalled remotely, etc.

I’m wondering if there is a pattern that would explain why some installations seem to uninstall cleanly, while others leave behind partial registry information.

All of this should be helpful in getting this cleaned up within Spiceworks.

aaronnielsen7219 · 2012-06-27T15:10:35.000Z

Hi Ben,

Some info for you. We have the same issue with most of our Microsoft products that have been uninstalled (Office, Project and Visio).

Even got a Project 2010 that was uninstalled as no longer needed on that PC being detected. I removed HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Registration for Project and it says it’s still there. Don’t want to play too much in case it breaks Office 2010.

I decided to run Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit | Microsoft Learn) since we doing Microsoft Audit and it does not see the old uninstalled Spiceworks ones.

Aaron