A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for inventorying software products. One or more search definitions are created specifying the software products, as well as one or more network domains and individual computers, to be searched. The search is performed using an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) parser file to extract data on the specified software products from the registries of the specified network domains and individual computers. A report listing of the software products installed on the specified network domains and individual computers is compiled from this data. The report listing can be saved for later use in an inventory database.