0

We have a few Windows machines that have multiple Python installations on them, for various reasons. Who doesn't love legacy systems?

In a bit of a clean up effort, I'd like to attempt to figure out which ones are actually in use. As far as I can see, I have two options in this:

  • Go through all the products manually and see what paths they reference
  • Find some kind of indicator of use, so I can script this task and keep my sanity

I'm somewhat attached to my sanity, so the second option is definitely my preference.

I'm aware that there are plenty of places that someone might have installed Python, so I'll be attempting to cover these off to find individual Python installations before then trying to confirm if they're in use or not.

Has anyone had to do something similar in the past and found a 'use indicator' of a specific Python installation?

Jo TR
  • 1
  • 1

1 Answers1

0

Look into system variables for anything python related and: Anaconda and virtual env. https://docs.python.org/2/using/windows.html

At installation python updates some sys env variables and on top of that virtual envs can be used https://docs.python-guide.org/dev/virtualenvs/ . If the the python installation directory there is a pip installation that can also help :)

Alex H
  • 1,814
  • 11
  • 18
  • I appreciate the pointers, but these are the bits I know about. I guess the question could be better phrased without the use of Python, how can you tell the last execution time of a .exe? – Jo TR Oct 19 '18 at 09:10
  • There should be some traces inside Application or system log if the exe logs there, you can go ahead and filter them for the specific .exe. There are additional traces in the %APPDATA% folder and so on, but for that you will need a full forensics look at it and I don't know if it's worth it – Alex H Oct 19 '18 at 09:30