Powershell issue with formating information returned from a function

Ok,

I've got the following function that reads all of the installed programs from a Windows computer's registry.

...and it works great for telling me the exactly version and name of software installed on a Windows 32bit/64bit system.

However, if I call the funtion using this format:

$x = Get-InstalledPrograms <computer name>

The result is that I get  a variable with the infromation returned from the function.

So, I can then issue the command:

$x.keys and see a list of everything installed.  ...but is a runon sentance type list... not an array.

What I can't do is execute:

$x.keys[1] and get the first item in the list... and it doesn't seem to be translating into an array variable, as I'm getting this:

Unable to index into an object of type System.Collections.Hashtable+KeyCollection.
At line:1 char:32
+ $InstalledApplicationList.keys[ <<<< 1]
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (1:Int32) [], RuntimeException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotIndex

So, clearly, I need to figure out how to get $x.keys and $x.values (which have a 1 to 1 relationship) to be in an array.  This way I can check what's on a specific PC against a list of application that I'm looking for, from another source.

Thoughts?

The function is below:

function Get-InstalledPrograms($computer = '.') { 

$programs_installed = @{};
$error_action = 'Stop';
$reg_uninstall_paths = @('Software\Microsoft\Windows'`
	+ '\CurrentVersion\Uninstall');

$reg_uninstall_paths += @('Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft'`
	+ '\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall');
	$hkey = 'LocalMachine';
	
	$registry = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey($hkey, $computer);
	foreach ($reg_uninstall_path in $reg_uninstall_paths) {
		$reg_uninstall_key = $registry.OpenSubKey($reg_uninstall_path);
		if ($reg_uninstall_key -eq $null) {
			continue;
		}
		$key_names = $reg_uninstall_key.GetSubKeyNames();
		foreach ($key_name in $key_names) {
			$key_properties = $reg_uninstall_key.OpenSubKey($key_name);
			$name = $key_properties.GetValue('DisplayName');
			$version = $key_properties.GetValue('DisplayVersion');
			if ($name -ne $null) {
				$programs_installed.$name = $version;
			}
			$key_properties.close();
		}
		$reg_uninstall_key.close();
	}
	$registry.close();
	
	$reg_uninstall_paths = @('Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products');
	$hkey = 'CurrentUser';

	$registry = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey($hkey, $computer);
	foreach ($reg_uninstall_path in $reg_uninstall_paths) {
		$reg_uninstall_key = $registry.OpenSubKey($reg_uninstall_path);
		if ($reg_uninstall_key -eq $null) {
			continue;
		}
		$key_names = $reg_uninstall_key.GetSubKeyNames();
		foreach ($key_name in $key_names) {
			$key_properties = $reg_uninstall_key.OpenSubKey($key_name);
			$name = $key_properties.GetValue('ProductName');
			$version = $key_properties.GetValue('DisplayVersion');
			if ($name -ne $null) {
				$programs_installed.$name = $version;
			}
			$key_properties.close();
		}
		$reg_uninstall_key.close();
	}
	$registry.close();
	
	
return $programs_installed;
}

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