How to search for specific value in Registry keys

Question

How can I search for specific value in the registry keys?

For example I want to search for XXX in

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\Installer\\Products
         


        

Answer 1

This method will search a specified registry key for the first subkey that contains a specified value. If the key is found then the specified value is returned. Searchign is only one level deep. If you require deeper searching then I suggest modifying this code to make use of recursion. Searching is case-sensitive but again you can modify that if required.

private string SearchKey(string keyname, string data, string valueToFind, string returnValue)
{
    RegistryKey uninstallKey = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(keyname);
    var programs = uninstallKey.GetSubKeyNames();

    foreach (var program in programs)
    {
        RegistryKey subkey = uninstallKey.OpenSubKey(program);
        if (string.Equals(valueToFind, subkey.GetValue(data, string.Empty).ToString(), StringComparison.CurrentCulture))
        {
            return subkey.GetValue(returnValue).ToString();
        }
    }

    return string.Empty;
}

Example usage

// This code will find the version of Chrome (32 bit) installed
string version = this.SearchKey("SOFTWARE\\WOW6432Node\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Uninstall", "DisplayName", "Google Chrome", "DisplayVersion");