{"id":3163,"date":"2013-07-26T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2013\/07\/26\/use-powershell-to-inventory-modern-apps-in-windows-8\/"},"modified":"2013-07-26T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T00:01:00","slug":"use-powershell-to-inventory-modern-apps-in-windows-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/use-powershell-to-inventory-modern-apps-in-windows-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Use PowerShell to Inventory Modern Apps in Windows 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to look at modern apps in Windows 8.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the things I love about Windows 8 (including my Surface RT) are the modern apps. They are, well, just so modern. Of course, what I really like about them are the Windows PowerShell cmdlets that are part of the Appx module. Here are the cmdlets and functions from that module:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\> Get-Command -Module appx<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CommandType     Name                                               ModuleName<\/p>\n

———–     —-                                               ———-<\/p>\n

Function        Get-AppxLastError                                  Appx<\/p>\n

Function        Get-AppxLog                                        Appx<\/p>\n

Cmdlet          Add-AppxPackage                                    Appx<\/p>\n

Cmdlet          Get-AppxPackage                                    Appx<\/p>\n

Cmdlet          Get-AppxPackageManifest                            Appx<\/p>\n

Cmdlet          Remove-AppxPackage                                 Appx<\/p>\n

Using Get-AppxPackage<\/h2>\n

I can use the Get-AppxPackage<\/strong> cmdlet to view application packages for my current user ID. But If I want to view packages from all users, I need to start Windows PowerShell with Admin rights. To see all of the modern apps that are installed for my sign-in ID, I use the Get-AppxPackage<\/strong> cmdlet with no parameters. An example of this is shown here:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Because the cmdlet displays packages for my current sign-in ID, the output does not include user information by default. When I use the –AllUsers<\/strong> switch, PackageUserInformation<\/strong> becomes available, as shown here:<\/p>\n

Get-AppxPackage –AllUsers<\/p>\n

The command and the associated output are shown in the image that follows.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

I can also specify a particular user. This user can be from the domain (if the computer is domain-joined), or it can be from the local account database. In the following example, I choose a user from the local account database. The syntax is computername\\username.<\/p>\n

Get-AppxPackage -User edlt\\ed<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>  Like when I use the cmdlet to retrieve current sign-in user information, PackageUserInformation<\/strong> does not display by default when retrieving specific user information.<\/p>\n

The cool thing is that with Windows PowerShell, I can also sort by group and do any parsing that I feel I should do. For example, I might want to see how many different users installed modern applications on this computer. I do this by using the –Unique<\/strong> switch in conjunction with the Select-Object<\/strong> cmdlet as follows:<\/p>\n

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | select packageuserinformation –Unique<\/p>\n

The command and its associated output are shown here:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

It also appears that I have several packages that are already downloaded, but not yet installed. I see this by looking at “Unknown user: Staged.” So I query for all users, and I select the name and version of the product when the user contains the word “staged.” Here is the command and the associated output:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\> Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | where packageuserinformation -match staged |<\/p>\n

select name, version<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name                                       Version<\/p>\n

—-                                       ——-<\/p>\n

5269FriedChicken.YouTubeVideosDownloader   1.0.0.132<\/p>\n

24264Craftbox.Showtime                     6.0.0.19<\/p>\n

LenovoCorporation.LenovoSettings           1.2.0.13723<\/p>\n

PixelTuckerPtyLtd.MetroTwit                1.0.0.126<\/p>\n

PixelTuckerPtyLtd.MetroTwit                1.0.0.127<\/p>\n

Because I see there are two copies of MetroTwit staged, I decide to look at information concerning my version of MetroTwit. To do this, I use the –Name <\/strong>parameter as shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\> Get-AppxPackage -Name *metrotwit*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name              : PixelTuckerPtyLtd.MetroTwit<\/p>\n

Publisher         : CN=34979D06-CC5C-48B5-BB2F-8EF70E1A425E<\/p>\n

Architecture      : Neutral<\/p>\n

ResourceId        :<\/p>\n

Version           : 1.0.0.116<\/p>\n

PackageFullName   : PixelTuckerPtyLtd.MetroTwit_1.0.0.116_neutral__5kbmb3e034y6r<\/p>\n

InstallLocation   : C:\\Program Files\\WindowsApps\\PixelTuckerPtyLtd.MetroTwit_1.0.0.1<\/p>\n

                    16_neutral__5kbmb3e034y6r<\/p>\n

IsFramework       : False<\/p>\n

PackageFamilyName : PixelTuckerPtyLtd.MetroTwit_5kbmb3e034y6r<\/p>\n

PublisherId       : 5kbmb3e034y6r<\/p>\n

Cool. I see that I am using an older version of MetroTwit. I already have two updated versions on my system, and I simply need to upgrade the package.<\/p>\n

Well, that is all there is to exploring Appx packages with Windows PowerShell. Join me tomorrow when I will talk about more cool Windows PowerShell stuff.<\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to look at modern apps in Windows 8. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the things I love about Windows 8 (including my Surface RT) are the modern apps. They are, well, just so modern. Of course, what I really like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[378,3,312,367,45],"class_list":["post-3163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-desktop","tag-scripting-guy","tag-software","tag-windows-8","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to look at modern apps in Windows 8. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the things I love about Windows 8 (including my Surface RT) are the modern apps. They are, well, just so modern. Of course, what I really like […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}