Patent ID: 7155714

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of inventorying software products, comprising: (a) creating, in a Product Manager executed by a workstation, one or more search definitions specifying the software products to search for that are installed on one or more specified computers that are connected to the workstation by a network, wherein the search definitions are used to extract data on the specified software products from registries of the specified computers; and (b) performing, in the Product Manager executed by the workstation, a search of the specified computers using a parser file based on the search definitions, wherein the Product Manager remotely accesses the registries of the specified computers across the network and uses the parser file to extract the data on the specified software products that are installed on the specified computers from the registries of the specified computers for subsequent storage and display by the Product Manager on the workstation, wherein the parser file provides a set of scripting directives that define logic, rules, commands and conditional checks used to parse, navigate and evaluate patterns and structures in the registries of the specified computers being searched.