So the ones that have a newer version than WP 2000 shows the version, or does WP 2000 show it too?
We've considered other ways of retreiving a software list. The Uninstall area of the registry is the fastest, and is usually satisfactory, but it relies on software developers to provide the information. Some do, but many do not.
Another method is to use a database/long search in addition or rather than using "Uninstall". NEWT would search for all applications on a remote machine matching a software entry in the database and displaying other unknown software, then asking if it would be ok to send information about the software so we may enter it into the database for quicker searches.
This would eventually increase the distribution size of our software several times, although we could let the software offer this as an optional download during installation or when choosing the option. Using this method would also slow down software scanning tremendously, but you would know every piece of software on the remote machine if it's installed properly or not, even if it's zipped.
We will look into this as a possible future addition to NEWT Pro.