How to get a list of software installed on a server using Powershell

Question: How can I list all software installed on a server using Powershell? I’d also like to compare two servers and report on differences of software installed using Powershell.

Answer:  To list the software installed on server use the Powershell management cmdlet Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product . 

To compare two servers use the output from the Powershell cmdlet Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product  and then use the Powershell utility cmdlet  Compare-Object –ReferenceObject to compare the output.

This example illustrates how to create the output

Step 1 :  Create the output for the two servers. Execute this code on the two separate servers. Example 1  outputs to the Powershell GUI. Example 2 , outputs to an output file.

--Example 1 – output to GUI
 Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Select-Object -Property name,installdate | sort-object -property installdate
--Example 2 – output to output file
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Product | Select-Object -Property Name > C:\path\server1.txt

Step 2 : Using the two output files , execute this Powershell script

 Compare-Object -ReferenceObject (Get-Content C:\server1.txt) -DifferenceObject (Get-Content  server2.txt)

Example out from the Compare-Object -ReferenceObject

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