How do you list the Scopes of all your installed programs on Windows 10? Preferably through PowerShell

Question

Is there a way I can check the scope of my installed programs? I would like to know if certain programs are for just the CurrentUser or if they can be used by AllUsers. Preferably via PowerShell, but I guess it doesn't have to be.

Answer 1

To find all executables in the PATH (located in directories listed in $env:PATH) located in directories outside the current user's home directory tree, using the Get-Command and Where-Object cmdlets:

# Finds all executables in $env:PATH that are *not* located in the 
# current user's home-directory tree.
Get-Command -Type Application |
  Where-Object { -not $_.Path.StartsWith($HOME, 'OrdinalIgnoreCase') }

To ask the question for given executable names, using a calculated property:

# For the given executable names, outputs [pscustomobject] instances
# containing each executable's full path and a flag that indicates 
# whether the executable's directory is located in the 
# current user's home-directory tree.
Get-Command -Type Application foo, bar | 
  Select-Object Path, 
                @{ Name='CurrentUserOnly'; Expression={ $_.Path.StartsWith($HOME, 'OrdinalIgnoreCase') } }

---

If you want to include executables that you can't invoke directly from a shell (whose directories aren't in $env:PATH), but can be invoked via start (cmd.exe) / Start-Process (PowerShell) / via the GUI's Run dialog (WinKey-R), such as excel.exe:

# Finds all executables in $env:PATH *and* those that can be launched
# via cmd /c start / Start-Process, which are *not* located in the 
# current user's home-directory tree.
# Lists full paths only.
@(Get-Command -Type Application).Path +
  (Get-ChildItem 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths').
    ForEach({ if ($val = $_.GetValue('') -replace '"') { $val } }) |
      Where-Object { -not $_.StartsWith($HOME, 'OrdinalIgnoreCase') }

---

Note: Unfortunately, Get-Package -IncludeWindowsInstaller is not an option, because, while it does list installed applications, it seemingly:

• cannot be combined with -Scope CurrentUser or -Scope AllUsers in Windows PowerShell; also -IncludeWindowsInstaller / -ProviderName Programs isn't supported at all in PowerShell (Core) 7+, at least by default.

• also doesn't return information about the installed programs' executable paths.

Answer 2

I was trying the get-package's -scope parameter, but that doesn't apply to applications. Here's another way to get it (Powershell 5.1). These per user apps tend to be the bane of administrators.

get-package | ? fastpackagereference -match hklm # 130 items


get-package | ? fastpackagereference -match hkcu | ft -a

Name                                Version          Source ProviderName
----                                -------          ------ ------------
Cisco Webex Meetings                41.5.4                  Programs
Amazon Kindle                       1.31.0.60170            Programs
f.lux                                                       Programs
Microsoft OneDrive                  21.073.0411.0002        Programs
Slack                               4.16.1                  Programs
Microsoft Teams                     1.4.00.4167             Programs
Microsoft Visual Studio Code (User) 1.55.2                  Programs