How to read program version by own application?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi,
as an administrator I am writing an application which is started at user’s boot time to validate, if a newer program version of avast is available on our servers. I don’t want setupgerpro.exe to be started everytime, so I’d like to know if there is anywhere available what program version is already running.

When I check “about avast!” in the tray it says “4.8.1290”. Where to get this string from by application?

I tried file versions, but ALL *.exe and *.dll files I checked say “4.8.1287.0”, nevertheless the “about” says “4.8.1290”.
I scrolled through registry, but couldn’t find a hint. The avast.ini file only shows the major version “4.8”; but what about the minor “1290”?

So, how can I easily check, which program version is installed on the local pc? ???

BTW: The new program version is correctly to read from file version of setupgerpro.exe.

Thanks in advance!
Siegfried.

2

I believe it’s encoded in the name of the packages, i.e. possibly not clearly available for external programs.

If I may ask - what are you trying to achieve? Sounds like reimplementing something that’s already present in avast…?

3

Hello,

when a user’s desktop pc is booted my application should check whether there is a new version available on our local server. These pc has no connection to internet! Our local server is fed with updates from the internet. The user then should decide, if he wants to update or if he will be reminded later.

Of course there is the possibility to start setupgerpro.exe every time the user boots, but that costs to much time and doesn’t give me the control over the boot dialogs.

It would be so easy, if a file like ashAvast.exe has the actual file version, which can easily been read.

4

I don’t know many things about writing an application, but is it possible to get the fileversion via the details?

in German, because there its easier for me :wink:
[Wenn du auf Eigenschaften bei zB ashAvast klickst und dann unter details → Dateiversion steht die aktuelle Versionsnummer…]
like already said - i don’t know if its possible to read this information via a program, but there the actual program version can be found…

yours
onlysomeone

5

@ onlysomeone: Yes, it is possible to read this information. That’s what I called “file version” before. But in the case of version 4.8.1290 all file infos were set to 4.8.1287, although the tray “about avast!” said 4.8.1290 correctly. So, the question still is, where the about information is taken from.

@igor: I don’t want to reinvent things already there. Where can I learn more about the command line interface of avast? We are using the professional version, especially to support the AVAST team. But if there are features I can use, why not do so?
To me it looks like an error on the side of AVAST. When they publish a new version, the file versions should adopt to this number, but in case of 4.8.1290 they probably forgot. E.g. 4.8.1296 can be read in ashWebsv.exe correctly, but version 4.8.1290 said 4.8.1287, which forced the confusion to my application.

Thanks for the support!

6

You can use the value “SetupVersion” in the reg key

HKLM\Software\ALWIL Software\Avast\4.0

Hope this helps,
Vlk

7

However, you might want to use avast! NetClient version and ADNM - it supports stuff like local mirrors, checking for program versions on client machines, etc.

8

Thanks Vlk, it does. How come that I missed that key when I browsed the reg key? Anyway. That’s it.