Detecting if MSBuild/.net 4 is installed from C# code running on 3.5?

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+1 Q:

Detecting if MSBuild/.net 4 is installed from C# code running on 3.5?

I have an application that is running on .net 3.5 SP1 and that is supposed to check if .net 4 is installed.

Actually, I'm more interested if MSBuild v4 is installed, which would boil down to a simple File.Exists(@"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\msbuild.exe");

However, apart from the fragility of the 4.0.30319 Version (and the Windir, but that's easy to solve), I wonder if there is a more appropriate way, like an API?

+1 A:

I saw this blog post but hope a @JaredPar or similar will be in with something neater!

(Still looking for way to derive install dir cleanly

I suspec that for a .NET version, the .buildnumber bit is guaranteed not to move after RTM (or even even SPs)

Remember the Framework (vs Framework64) bit is also not necessarily stable [and as pointed out in the comments to the cited blog article, you may need to take Wow6432Node into account for the registry side of this]

Are you actually after the path to msbuild.exe or do you need to know if .NET 4 is present? Are any predefined symbols in MSBuild useful / does reflectoring into msbuild.exe yield anything?)

Ruben Bartelink 2010-06-16 00:29:21

Thanks. The Wow6432Node thing is a bit annoying, but luckily I target 64-bit systems only. Looking at InstallPath in `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full` seems promising and if that's how they officially support it (seems so from the article), that would work. I specifically need to know if msbuild 4 is present, but as far as I know it comes (only) with .net 4, so checking for one gives me the other.

Michael Stum 2010-06-16 00:42:00

Yes. Be careful though - msbuild isnt in the client profile so you need to be checking for the key for the full .NET 4 (you'll see that referenced in stuff you hit from googling ".net 4.0 framework directory"

Ruben Bartelink 2010-06-16 00:53:44

Also saw some more stuff about how you detect the one for your ambient platform which obv isnt much use for you. Dont have a FW 4 install here so considering this done and dusted :D (Reflectored 3.5 but no sign of anything that's future proofed in the managed assemblies)

Ruben Bartelink 2010-06-16 00:55:52

Re Wow6432Node, you should be able to derive somethign neat and suitable from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1074411/how-to-open-a-wow64-registry-key-from-a-64-bit-net-application

Ruben Bartelink 2010-06-16 01:00:49

Tried it on a few PCs and it seems to work fine.

Michael Stum 2010-06-17 08:34:24

ansaurus

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Detecting if MSBuild/.net 4 is installed from C# code running on 3.5?

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