[chef] Determining State of Affairs on Windows Nodes

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I am using chef to manage Windows boxes. I want my recipe to install a given
version of an application. If the app is already installed to that version, I
don't want to reinstall it. Are there best practices/built-in functionality 
for
doing this, or do I have to roll my own? It seems like the *nix versions rely
on the native package managers to handle this functionality. Note that
"application" could be an app that gets installed in C:\Programs, or a set of
DLL's that go in the GAC, etc.