Currently the way I do this is to leave Firefoxes RSS ticker running on my machine, and that of one of my collegues, showing the Software detected in the last 'N' Days feed (typically the last 5 days).
This lets me see quickly when something new arrives, and when I hover over the items, it shows Machine name, IP and User. Our Quality policy dictates that users are not allowed to install anything without approval, and I have just issued a number of Non Conformance Reports for this today.
This is not an ideal solution, as it doesn't show historical stuff, but it catches a surprising number of offenders, and makes the majority of people stick to the rules. However any hookey software installed a while ago will go unnoticed till we manually run through the All software list which is done periodically (about once a month).
I suspect that any changes we make will need to do something similar, perhaps even change the RSS feed to allow optionally showing only unapproved software items.
Having an approved software list may not be quite as easy as it appears, since "Outlook", "Outlook 2002", "Outlook 2003", "Outlook 2008" etc might be approved, but "Outlook Hookey Toolbar" is not, and often things I think might be iffy turn out to be componets of existing software. HP scanners for example install a surprising amount of bloat, but I cant NCR someone if they requested that they be allowed to install their shiny new scanner, just because it installed ZinPing Image software, not on the approved software list.
Automating the approval of software is not as simple as it sounds either, for example some users at a remote site, might be permitted Office Pro, and others only Office Standard, due to licensing restrictions.
If they sneak in to the software cupboard and install Pro without asking that is an NCR, but since the software is on the approved list, we might not spot it. Likewise some users are allowed to install Google Earth (if they seek approval) in order to plan site visits or whatever, other most certainly are not, since they probably only be using it to look for evidence of UFOs
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We dont want to make things too complicated, but...