NinjaOne Endpoint Management: The Software Inventory

Topic

This article discusses the Software inventory tab in the NinjaOne dashboard

Environment

NinjaOne Endpoint Management

Description

The software inventory lets you view and manage software from a dedicated dashboard. NinjaOne checks for changes to the software inventory once at startup and then every minute thereafter.

If you uninstall software, NinjaOne will wait 10 minutes before removing an item or updating the software.

Navigating to the Software Inventory

The software inventory is located on the System dashboard.

In NinjaOne, click Dashboard, then click the Software tab. Depending on the device and its governing policy, your screen may look slightly different than that shown in Figure 1.

**Figure 1**: Dashboard → Software (click to enlarge)

Software Inventory Information Sources

NinjaOne uses various sources to populate the software inventory, depending on the machine's operating system.

Microsoft Windows

For most applications, the software inventory obtains information (both the software and the install date) directly from the registry keys below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWOW6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall

Microsoft Store Apps

For Microsoft Store apps, which can be installed on workstations running Windows 10 or later, NinjaOne uses the Get-Appx PowerShell function to retrieve this information. However, we filter out packages that are framework or system-related.

Software Installation Date Issues

Some Microsoft Store apps (such as Calculator or Photos) display installation dates that are older than your machine's age, or default to a standard date, such as "1970-01-01." The method that Windows uses to track these applications causes this expected behavior, and may encompass the following:

User-specific tracking: Microsoft Store apps are linked to specific user accounts. When you log in, Windows registers the "install date" specifically for you.
System-level monitoring: Our monitoring tools run in the background as the "System" (not as a specific logged-in user). Since the System account doesn't have its own personal store apps, it cannot view your particular installation date.
The fallback date: If NinjaOne does not find the specific date, it looks at the creation date of the app's folder instead.

Why the Dates Look Old

For many pre-installed Windows apps, this folder date reflects the date when Microsoft originally built the app package, not when it was installed on your PC. This behavior is why the same static date (such as from a few years ago) may appear across many different computers.

**Figure 2**: Incorrect installation date display (click to enlarge)

Apple macOS

NinjaOne obtains software inventory information from System Information → Software → Applications → Last Modified.

**Figure 3**: macOS System Information → Software → Applications → Last Modified (click to enlarge)

Linux

NinjaOne obtains software information from the following sources:

The local package manager
Advanced Package Tool (APT)
Yellowdog Updater Modified (YUM)
Dandified YUM (DNF)

The example in Figure 4 is a DNF query for the LibTIFF library.

**Figure 4**: Linux DNF query example (click to enlarge)

Uninstalling Windows Software

For Windows devices, you can uninstall software directly from the software inventory:

Select the checkboxes for the software to uninstall.
Click Uninstall.

**Figure 5**: Uninstall Windows software (click to enlarge)

Software Removal Considerations

Consider the following limitations and behaviors before removing Windows software:

If you attempt to uninstall more than 50 software items in a single action, the uninstall will fail, and a "Safety limit exceeded" message will display in the Recent system activities feed.
NinjaOne will only uninstall software that supports silent uninstalls. If you attempt to remove an application that does not support quiet uninstalls, the removal will fail, and an error message reading "UNSUPPORTED output: This program does not support quiet uninstalls" will display in the Recent system activities feed.
NinjaOne determines support for uninstalling items silently by looking for the QuietUninstallString entry in the registry.
NinjaOne cannot uninstall some applications, such as antivirus software or the NinjaOne agent itself. The checkboxes for these items will be greyed out and unselectable in the Software tab.