WMI instead of WMIC command to find application version?

Question

I'm using wmic to find the current version of an in-house application. My command looks like this:

wmic product where "name='Application Name'" get version

I've never used wmi, but I've read about people saying it's easier to use than wmic. I think my use is a pretty simple one, but how would I use wmi for this, and would it be faster than wmic? (wmic runs very slowly for me)

When you use `wmic`, you are in fact "using wmi". `wmic` = `wmi commandline` — Mathias R. Jessen, Dec 10 '15 at 17:01

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 10 '15 at 13:42

2

PowerShell

Get-WMIObject -Query "SELECT Version FROM Win32_Product WHERE Name='SomeName'"

answered Dec 10 '15 at 13:42

Greg Askew

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:41

2

I've read bad things about using Win32_Product. I don't know the details about it, so maybe it's fine in this case, but I ended up going with the following after reading this blog and asking this question:

$regpath = 'HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall'
$version = Get-ItemProperty "$regpath\*" |
           Where-Object { $_.DisplayName -eq 'Application Name' } |
           Select-Object -Expand DisplayVersion

edited May 23 '17 at 12:41

Community

1

answered Dec 10 '15 at 15:02

WhiteHotLoveTiger

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I read that same blog a few months ago and it completely scared me off using the Win32_Product class as well. I would love to hear more remarks regard this "warning" (i.e. use cases, empirical evidence, production experience) regarding the use of the Win32_Product class though, as it seems like people are still using it quite often, and it has never affected any of my systems in the staging and testing environments. – Get-HomeByFiveOClock Dec 10 '15 at 15:13

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 10 '15 at 13:55

To emulate the wmic command you posted using WMI, open a PowerShell prompt and input:

Get-WmiObject -Class "Win32_Product" | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq "Application Name" } | select Name,Version

You can use { $_.Name -like "*application*" } for better matching, if needed.

This can also be run against remote machines and/or using different credentials by adding the -ComputerName and -Credential parameters.

Hackoo · Answer 4 · 2021-10-21T09:51:38.547

Here is a powershell script to get some information about chrome and of course you can change it on the script below :

$OS_Architecture = $env:PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE
if($OS_Architecture -eq 'x86')
{$key="HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*"} 
    else {$key="HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*"}

Get-ItemProperty $Key |
    Where-Object { $_.DisplayName -match 'chrome' } |
        Select-Object DisplayName, DisplayVersion, Publisher, InstallDate |
            Format-Table –AutoSize

WMI instead of WMIC command to find application version?

4 Answers4