Using code to search for program on Hard drive

php, jsp code for string search

[williamlsteele]

Okay, I know that html is limited by the nature of the language to what typically appears in input/output streams to begin with. However, I am not sure about what happens outside this programmer's Pandora's box.

What I'm trying to do is write an intranet script that searches to see if a particular program is on someone's hard drive. My initial thought was to do a script for the particular .exe in the directory structure with a little help pointing it in the right direction by spelling out the path where things should be....i.e., click on "Search for C: shell" icon and function goes off looking for object at "C:WINDOWS\system\...". If it matches the string, the html prints out "Yes, you have this program installed."; if not, "Sorry, Charlie, better luck next time!"

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[webdoctor]

searches to see if a particular program is on someone's hard drive

1. Are you planning on searching by filename only? How do you plan to tell the difference between e.g. different versions of MS Word, which are all named winword.exe? Word v2.0 isn't quite the same as Word 2003...

2. Most scripting languages do not have unresticted access to the user's local filesystem (for security reasons). You simply aren't allowed to search the entire hard disc.

[williamlsteele]

No, I thought using the string would be the cleanest (though not necessarily most effective) approach. Without actually writing an executable code (to escape the browser limitations you hinted at) I was hoping their might be some sort of workaround. I know there are limits, I am just not sure what the edges of those soft lines really are.