Seeing what is installed on an Windows install without it being booted

[LewisSpring]

Hello,

I have brought a new PC, since my old one died, and have no way of booting my system up to see what was installed. How can I do so?

I have access to my files via SATA > USB adapter, but i know some programs get installed to places other than Program Files.

 

Thanks

[Eigenvektor]

No easy way to access "installed programs" without running Windows. I'm sure that info is in some OS file, or maybe the registry but that won't be easy to access.

 

You could potentially try to run it as a virtual machine. There are ways to use a physical disk as a VM's disk, so you could try to boot up your old Windows installation in a virtual environment.

[LewisSpring]

10 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

No easy way to access "installed programs" without running Windows. I'm sure that info is in some OS file, or maybe the registry but that won't be easy to access.

 

You could potentially try to run it as a virtual machine. There are ways to use a physical disk as a VM's disk, so you could try to boot up your old Windows installation in a virtual environment.

If i have issues running my install on the new PC, I'll give that a go. Thanks!

[Radium_Angel]

33 minutes ago, TheLewisS1 said:

Hello,

I have brought a new PC, since my old one died, and have no way of booting my system up to see what was installed. How can I do so?

I have access to my files via SATA > USB adapter, but i know some programs get installed to places other than Program Files.

 

Thanks

Programs *only* get installed under C:\Program Files and C:\Program FIles(x86)......*unless* you choose a different directory (C:\Steam comes to mind)

So assuming you took the defaults, it'd be quite easy to see what's on your old drive. You probably couldn't run them, but you could see what you had...

 

[Kilrah]

That's incorrect, a lot of "newfangled" programs install themselves in the user's profile directory to avoid requiring admin rights to install.

[LewisSpring]

2 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

That's incorrect, a lot of "newfangled" programs install themselves in the user's profile directory to avoid requiring admin rights to install.

I think Discord does that, since i can't find it in Program Files but it is in AppData

[Kilrah]

Yup that's one of them.