Check if a certain application is installed via registry problem?

Question

I'm trying to check if certain programs are installed using the registry and I hit a problem, Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and I don't know why .. can someone tell me what am I doing wrong here ?

This is the code I'm using

public static bool checkInstalled(string c_name)
    {
        string displayName;

        string registryKey = @"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall";
        RegistryKey key = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(registryKey);
        if (key != null)
        {
            foreach (RegistryKey subkey in key.GetSubKeyNames().Select(keyName => key.OpenSubKey(keyName)))
            {
                displayName = subkey.GetValue("DisplayName") as string;
                if (displayName != null && displayName.Contains(c_name))
                {
                    return true;
                }
            }
            key.Close();
        }

        registryKey = @"SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall";
        key = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(registryKey);
        if (key != null)
        {
            foreach (RegistryKey subkey in key.GetSubKeyNames().Select(keyName => key.OpenSubKey(keyName)))
            {
                displayName = subkey.GetValue("DisplayName") as string;
                if (displayName != null && displayName.Contains(c_name))
                {
                    return true;
                }
            }
            key.Close();
        }
        return false;
    }

and I just call it by

if (checkInstalled("XXXXX"))
        {
            //do stuff
        }

it doesn't always work .. for example if I try to check for "Riot Vanguard" it will not work and it will return false even if it's installed. and here is the regkey for it.

You know that `"Riot Vanguard` != `Riot Vanguard` and the carachter `"` shouldn't be there, it is only a visual aid to show it is a string, but the actual value is without the `"`. — Rand Random, Dec 23 '21 at 11:58
I did and it just can't find it for some reason .. I call the function multiple times for different app check and it works on some of them and others it just don't ! — Ahmed Rizk, Dec 23 '21 at 12:00
You may want to read this aswell: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/974038/reading-64bit-registry-from-a-32bit-application — Rand Random, Dec 23 '21 at 12:00
yeah I just miss typed I meant "Riot Vanguard" as in if (checkInstalled("Riot Vanguard")) .. @RandRandom — Ahmed Rizk, Dec 23 '21 at 12:02
"just miss typed" - you can [edit] your question to correct it — Klaus Gütter, Dec 23 '21 at 14:07

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 23 '21 at 11:51

I know that's a long shot and might not matter, but whenever I have problems in code that uses collections created with Linq I like to put .ToList() at the end to make sure that the whole query executes before proceeding (in your case I mean collections in the foreach loops)

Check if a certain application is installed via registry problem?

1 Answers1