How to detect VC++ 2008 redistributable?

Question

Is there a Registry setting that I can look for to determine whether or not the Visual C++ redistributable is installed, whether standalone or as part of Visual Studio 2008?

Answer 1

I open-sourced a Visual C++ project on Github that checks for VC++ redistributable DLLs specifically and made it available under the Apache 2.0 license.

It has three different methods for checking for the availability of VC++9 and VC++10 runtimes:

1. Checks the MsiQueryProductState APIs;
2. Inspect the contents of the WinSxS folder for matching product directories; and
3. Checks the current working directory for any local versions of the VC++9 and VC++10 runtimes (and inspects their contents.)

edit: Here's a sample of what using it actually looks like:

 wcout << _T("Checking for the availability of VC++ runtimes..") << endl;
 wcout << _T("----------- Visual C++ 2008 (VC++9) -----------") << endl;
 wcout << _T("Visual C++ 2008 (x86) ? ") << (IsVC2008Installed_x86() ? _T("true") : _T("false")) << endl;
 wcout << _T("Visual C++ 2008 (x64) ? ") << (IsVC2008Installed_x64() ? _T("true") : _T("false")) << endl;
 wcout << _T("Visual C++ 2008 SP1 (x86) ? ") << (IsVC2008SP1Installed_x86() ? _T("true") : _T("false")) << endl;
 wcout << _T("Visual C++ 2008 SP1 (x64) ? ") << (IsVC2008SP1Installed_x64() ? _T("true") : _T("false")) << endl;

I licensed the crt-detector project under Apache 2.0, so feel free to use it in your own applications.