Programmatically (not manually) finding the path where Git is installed on a Windows system

Question

I\'d like to write a small build helper tool that shall read some properties of the current Git working directory, like the last commit hash, whether there\'s modified files

Answer 1

I'm using the following batch file to find out where Git for Windows has been installed:

@echo off

setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

rem Read the Git for Windows installation path from the Registry.
for %%k in (HKCU HKLM) do (
    for %%w in (\ \Wow6432Node\) do (
        for /f "skip=2 delims=: tokens=1*" %%a in ('reg query "%%k\SOFTWARE%%wMicrosoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Git_is1" /v InstallLocation 2^> nul') do (
            for /f "tokens=3" %%z in ("%%a") do (
                set GIT=%%z:%%b
                echo Found Git at "!GIT!".
                goto FOUND
            )
        )
    )
)

goto NOT_FOUND

:FOUND

rem Make sure Bash is in PATH (for running scripts).
set PATH=%GIT%bin;%PATH%

rem Do something with Git ...

:NOT_FOUND

I should be straight forward to do something similar in .NET. Just remember that you have to explicitly check the 32-bit branch of the Registry if you're on a 64-bit Windows.

Edit: Git for Windows 2.6.1 now additionally writes the CurrentVersion, InstallPath and LibexecPath values to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\GitForWindows key.