Determine if PowerCLI is installed

[jkyoutsey]

I would like to make PowerCLI a pre-requisite for our product. How can I determine if it is installed and that the correct version is installed?

I can easily check for Registry settings and that would be the preferred way.

I've searched for PowerCLI in the registry to no avail. I've checked the basics under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc. and there isn't anything that jumps out at me.

[LucD]

Can't you use the Get-PSSnapin cmdlet to see if it is installed followed by the Get-ViToolkitVersion for the build version ?

This of course presumes you do the tests from a PowerShell script.

[jkyoutsey]

Can't you use the Get-PSSnapin cmdlet to see if it is installed followed by the Get-ViToolkitVersion for the build version ?

This of course presumes you do the tests from a PowerShell script.

I'll be in a process where I'm determining if things are installed before installing. So, I will be determining if PowerShell is installed as well (it may not be). So I would rather not attempt to shell out to a process that may not start and deal with the error handling. I would rather do a less "dangerous" scenario of examining the registry, file system, etc... It is a more consistent way of determining application install status.

[LucD]

Then you could test for the existance of the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware vSphere PowerCLI.

The branch contains a value (REG-SZ) called InstalledVersion.

But the build number in there is not the one you will get with the Get-ViToolkitVersion cmdlet.

It corresponds with the File Version property of the DLLs in the folder %ProgramFiles%\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI.

Note that this folder was called differently when the product was still called the VI Toolkit for Windows.