In C# .NET 2.0 or greater, how to get list of all installed applications on Vista PC

Question

Using C# .NET 2.0 or greater and Visual Studio 2008, how would one generate a list of all installed applications on a Windows Vista PC?

My motivation is to get a text file of all my installed applications that I can save and keep around so that when I rebuild my machine I have a list of all of my old applications.

The second part of this question is kind of SuperUser.com thing, but hopefully the first part counts as "programming".

Thanks

Answer 1

Hi there.

You could look into referencing the SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall registry key. Check out these links:

http://www.onedotnetway.com/get-a-list-of-installed-applications-using-linq-and-c/ http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/netfxbcl/thread/ac23690a-f5f8-46fc-9047-c369f4370fac

Cheers. Jas.

Answer 2

See the source code of this library

foreach(var info in BlackFox.Win32.UninstallInformations.Informations.GetInformations())
{
    Console.WriteLine(info.ToString());
}

Answer 3

One must also account for different levels of installedness.

• An app may have had things done to it (deleted, etc.) since it was installed.
• Some apps don't 'install', but rather run as naked binaries.

Answer 4

The follwing will get you the installed apps for all users. Do the same for Registry.CurrentUser as well:

    RegistryKey uninstall = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall");
 List<string> applicationList = new List<string>();
 foreach (string subKeyName in uninstall.GetSubKeyNames())
 {
  RegistryKey subKey = uninstall.OpenSubKey(subKeyName);
  string applicationName = subKey.GetValue("DisplayName", String.Empty).ToString();
  if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(applicationName))
  {
   applicationList.Add(applicationName);
  }
  subKey.Close();
 }

 uninstall.Close();

 applicationList.Sort();

 foreach (string name in applicationList)
 {
  Console.WriteLine(name); 
 }

DISCLAIMER: There is no null value/error checking in my sample!