Get installed applications in a system

Question

How to get the applications installed in the system using c# code?

Answer 1

While the accepted solution works, it is not complete. By far.

If you want to get all the keys, you need to take into consideration 2 more things:

x86 & x64 applications do not have access to the same registry. Basically x86 cannot normally access x64 registry. And some applications only register to the x64 registry.

and

some applications actually install into the CurrentUser registry instead of the LocalMachine

With that in mind, I managed to get ALL installed applications using the following code, WITHOUT using WMI

Here is the code:

List installs = new List();
List keys = new List() {
  @"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall",
  @"SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall"
};

// The RegistryView.Registry64 forces the application to open the registry as x64 even if the application is compiled as x86 
FindInstalls(RegistryKey.OpenBaseKey(RegistryHive.LocalMachine, RegistryView.Registry64), keys, installs);
FindInstalls(RegistryKey.OpenBaseKey(RegistryHive.CurrentUser, RegistryView.Registry64), keys, installs);

installs = installs.Where(s => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(s)).Distinct().ToList();
installs.Sort(); // The list of ALL installed applications



private void FindInstalls(RegistryKey regKey, List keys, List installed)
{
  foreach (string key in keys)
  {
    using (RegistryKey rk = regKey.OpenSubKey(key))
    {
      if (rk == null)
      {
        continue;
      }
      foreach (string skName in rk.GetSubKeyNames())
      {
        using (RegistryKey sk = rk.OpenSubKey(skName))
        {
          try
          {
            installed.Add(Convert.ToString(sk.GetValue("DisplayName")));
          }
          catch (Exception ex)
          { }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}