How to check with C# where a program is installed

Question

I need to check where a program is installed by program name (name that appears in Add or Remove Programs). What is the best way to that so that it\'d work fine for all lang

Answer 1

Take a look into the registry at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Just iterate over all subkeys and take a look into the values DisplayName and InstallLocation. Here you'll find the infos you want and much more ;-)

Answer 2

You can achieve this using WMI Classes. But the prerequisite is

• the application and must be running

below the sample code to do this

 string queryString = 
                "SELECT Name, ProcessId, Caption, ExecutablePath" + 
                "  FROM Win32_Process";

            SelectQuery query = new SelectQuery(queryString);
            ManagementScope scope = new System.Management.ManagementScope(@"\\.\root\CIMV2");

            ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(scope, query);
            ManagementObjectCollection processes = searcher.Get();


            foreach(ManagementObject mObj in processes)
            {
                               var name = mObj ["Name"].ToString();
                                var ProcessId = Convert.ToInt32(mObj ["ProcessId"]);
                                var Caption = mObj ["Caption"].ToString();
                                var Path = mObj ["ExecutablePath"].ToString();
            }

Answer 3

To add to Oliver's answer I have wrapped up this check inside a static method.

public static bool IsProgramInstalled(string programDisplayName) {

    Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Checking install status of: {0}",  programDisplayName));
    foreach (var item in Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Uninstall").GetSubKeyNames()) {

        object programName = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Uninstall\\" + item).GetValue("DisplayName");

        Console.WriteLine(programName);

        if (string.Equals(programName, programDisplayName)) {
            Console.WriteLine("Install status: INSTALLED");
            return true;
        }
    }
    Console.WriteLine("Install status: NOT INSTALLED");
    return false;
}

Answer 4

Have a look at these links

Using Windows Installer to Inventory Products and Patches

and

MsiGetProductInfoEx Function