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There are some employee in company that installed pirated software in their PC and I scared they use for commercial use, so, I decided to use kind of a software to detect whether their PC installed any pirated software or any web site that may help detect??

Any suggestions?

Gurken Papst
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NewBirth
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  • This question would be best for [sf]. However, this question cannot be migrated because it is more than 90 days old. Voting to close as off topic. – bwDraco Apr 15 '13 at 18:35

3 Answers3

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There is no way to tell whether software is pirated on a technical level, simply because there are many ways to pirate software (registration key generators, patches, etc.).

You could prevent people installing any software at all using a technical solution, which is what I'd suggest.

  • erm..sorry for my doubt, what do you mean by technical solution? – NewBirth Jun 02 '11 at 02:02
  • Remove administrative privileges from users. –  Jun 02 '11 at 02:50
  • As I said originally, "there is no way to tell whether software is pirated on a technical level". –  Jun 02 '11 at 03:16
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    A limited/Standard user account cannot install software without credentials or a password....http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Why-use-a-standard-user-account-instead-of-an-administrator-account ..or...http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee623984(WS.10).aspx – Moab Jun 02 '11 at 15:11
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    I did say "install", assuming it uses a standard installer. Yes portable applications can be run in a limited account. Nothing is fool proof. – Moab Jun 02 '11 at 16:29
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Any determination like that would start with a few things:

Install the Microsoft Genuine Advantage tool. That will clearly tell you if you have bogus Microsoft products. http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/diag/

For other items, you are going to have to start with an audit. After the audit, you will have a much better idea of what your company is running compared to what it bought.

Here are some software audit tools: http://www.bsa.org/country/Tools%20and%20Resources/Free%20Software%20Audit%20Tools.aspx

Also, you can use spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com/

KCotreau
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  • how the audit tools stated helping in this situation?? I am so sorry that i am not very understand about it. – NewBirth Jun 02 '11 at 06:44
  • @KContreau, they are asking about pirated software other than the OS. – Moab Jun 02 '11 at 15:07
  • The idea is to retrieve a list of *any* software installed on a user's computer, and comparing that list with the software licenses your company has purchased for use. You would be looking for software that your users have installed, but your company did not buy. This is not entirely fool-proof (portable applications) but about as good as it gets. – Daniel Saner May 18 '12 at 13:29
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You can use ManageEngine's Desktop Central. It will monitor any new software installation.

slhck
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user134926
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