Serial numbers / software audit

[option8]

i’ve been tasked by a client to audit and compile a list of all the software installed in their design department, including serial numbers.

the goal is to comply with licensing agreements and not have, say 11 people using 10 licenses.

is there a tool or script that can be run via remote desktop (ideally) to gather serial number from certain applications? i’ve already gathered system profiler XML files from all of the machines, which gives me installed apps. i figure most apps will have the serial somewhere in their about dialog, but going through each one and launching a bunch of apps, just to copy down strings of random digits… tedious.

anyhoo, it’d be great if adobe made such a tool available – i’m sure they have something they use when they go in and audit someone for compliance.

[Patrick Gallagher]

Every app is going to be different. Some will clearly store it in a plist somewhere in /Library/Preferences or /Library/AppSupport/company/whatever, others will do everything they can to hide in fear of it being pirated. I don’t know of any automated methods of getting this info short of something like Landesk. Getting the list of installed software is easy with ARD, but serial #’s, you may be able to use the “defaults” command for some apps if you can figure out which plist(s) that info is stored in.

[option8]

that’s kinda what i’ve figured. i was hoping some intrepid sysadmin that’s handy with xcode would have come up with something automated by now, but the number of permutations is probably too many to be bothered with.

as it is, i’ve been kicking users off their machines (or waiting until they go to lunch) to have access to all their apps for a few minutes. i open the apps in question one at a time and take screenshots of the about box or splash screen where it shows the registered user and SN. these i can transcribe later, or just add to a PDF to print out for later reference.

not terribly elegant or efficient, but then, what about my job is?

[Patrick Gallagher]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: option8[/u][p]that’s kinda what i’ve figured. i was hoping some intrepid sysadmin that’s handy with xcode would have come up with something automated by now, but the number of permutations is probably too many to be bothered with.

[/p][/QUOTE]

This would require a huge amount of work to maintain a database of even the most common apps and where those #’s are stored.

[option8]

well, if it were just for the Adobe and Apple apps, which constitute about 90% of what my design and video clients use, that would be a big help. i’m surprised Adobe doesn’t offer something like an “Adobe Activation Scanner” or something to let sysadmins poll their networks for active SNs. maybe if i called in the BSA on myself, and let them do an audit for me…

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