A method for finding application components installed on a computer system for use in a backup system associated with the computer system includes creating a linked list of application components installed on the computer system. The nested directories are then traced back to find a target directory for each application component in the linked list. Thereafter, a request to find a selected application is received from a calling module. The method may further include the operations of searching the linked list for a target directory for each component of the selected application, and making the target directory for each component of the selected application available to the calling module, preferably by returning the target directories to the calling module. A computer readable media for finding application components installed on a computer system for use in a backup system associated with the computer system also is described.