Does anybody have any information on how I can programatically access the "Last used" information displayed on the "Currently installed applications list:" in the Add/Remove programs applet?
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Last Used stats in Add/remove progs
Started by
Nobby
, Nov 04 2003 17:38
2 replies to this topic
luke_s
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Posted 09 November 2003 - 23:26
Someone did ask this question a while ago but i dont think that anyone could actually answer it 
Can anyone help?
Can anyone help?
Stefan Krueger
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InstallSite.org
Posted 10 November 2003 - 08:40
The same question was posted in the Microsoft newsgroup, and here's the reply from a member of the Microsoft Windows Installer Team:
| QUOTE |
| The logic is internal to the Add/Remove programs applet. Both the algorithm and its results are not exposed to external callers. (I myself don't even know what the logic is or what source data is used in the calculation.) |
It was also stated:
| QUOTE |
| As far as I know, the feature usage data [MsiGetFeatureUsage() and FeatureUsageDate()] is not relevant to the Add\Remove programs applet's logic. The feature usage data stored by MSI is of limited usefulness since only applications that explicitly make MSI API calls to indicate feature usage at runtime ever trigger an update to this data. Since only a small portion of applications are that tightly integrated with MSI, the Add\Remove applet has its own method of determining "last-used" and "frequency of use" information which works for both MSI and non-MSI applications. |
However Kallely Sajan posted this:
| QUOTE |
| What I found is that this info is getting stored in SlowInfoCache under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Management\ARPCache Now how do you interpret that binary!!! Not documented any where. But somebody has spent quite sometime deciphering it. See http://www.extremete...,1153091,00.asp Just out of curiosity, I tried spliting the binary. Looks promising.... But I also found that for MSI based installations, this functionality is mostly broke. Taking a look at Orca install will sort of explain why. For Orca, the application in SlowInfoCache is pointing to orca_icon.exe. Looks like Windows Installer has to do something to take care of this. |
Stefan Krüger
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