Get installed applications in a system

How to get the applications installed in the system using c# code?

Iterating through the registry key "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" seems to give a comprehensive list of installed applications.

Aside from the example below, you can find a similar version to what I've done here.

This is a rough example, you'll probaby want to do something to strip out blank rows like in the 2nd link provided.

string registry_key = @"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall";
using(Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey key = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(registry_key))
{
    foreach(string subkey_name in key.GetSubKeyNames())
    {
        using(RegistryKey subkey = key.OpenSubKey(subkey_name))
        {
            Console.WriteLine(subkey.GetValue("DisplayName"));
        }
    }
}

Alternatively, you can use WMI as has been mentioned:

ManagementObjectSearcher mos = new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT * FROM Win32_Product");
foreach(ManagementObject mo in mos.Get())
{
    Console.WriteLine(mo["Name"]);
}

But this is rather slower to execute, and I've heard it may only list programs installed under "ALLUSERS", though that may be incorrect. It also ignores the Windows components & updates, which may be handy for you.

I wanted to be able to extract a list of apps just as they appear in the start menu. Using the registry, I was getting entries that do not show up in the start menu.

I also wanted to find the exe path and to extract an icon to eventually make a nice looking launcher. Unfortunately, with the registry method this is kind of a hit and miss since my observations are that this information isn't reliably available.

My alternative is based around the shell:AppsFolder which you can access by running explorer.exe shell:appsFolder and which lists all apps, including store apps, currently installed and available through the start menu. The issue is that this is a virtual folder that can't be accessed with System.IO.Directory. Instead, you would have to use native shell32 commands. Fortunately, Microsoft published the Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack-Shell on Nuget which is a wrapper for the aforementioned commands. Enough said, here's the code:

// GUID taken from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/knownfolderid
var FOLDERID_AppsFolder = new Guid("{1e87508d-89c2-42f0-8a7e-645a0f50ca58}");
ShellObject appsFolder = (ShellObject)KnownFolderHelper.FromKnownFolderId(FOLDERID_AppsFolder);

foreach (var app in (IKnownFolder)appsFolder)
{
    // The friendly app name
    string name = app.Name;
    // The ParsingName property is the AppUserModelID
    string appUserModelID = app.ParsingName; // or app.Properties.System.AppUserModel.ID
    // You can even get the Jumbo icon in one shot
    ImageSource icon =  app.Thumbnail.ExtraLargeBitmapSource;
}

And that's all there is to it. You can also start the apps using

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("explorer.exe", @" shell:appsFolder\" + appModelUserID);

This works for regular Win32 apps and UWP store apps. How about them apples.

Since you are interested in listing all installed apps, it is reasonable to expect that you might want to monitor for new apps or uninstalled apps as well, which you can do using the ShellObjectWatcher:

ShellObjectWatcher sow = new ShellObjectWatcher(appsFolder, false);
sow.AllEvents += (s, e) => DoWhatever();
sow.Start();

Edit: One might also be interested in knowing that the AppUserMoedlID mentioned above is the unique ID Windows uses to group windows in the taskbar.

I agree that enumerating through the registry key is the best way.

Note, however, that the key given, @"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall", will list all applications in a 32-bit Windows installation, and 64-bit applications in a Windows 64-bit installation.

In order to also see 32-bit applications installed on a Windows 64-bit installation, you would also need to enumeration the key @"SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall".

You can take a look at this article. It makes use of registry to read the list of installed applications.

public void GetInstalledApps()
{
    string uninstallKey = @"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall";
    using (RegistryKey rk = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(uninstallKey))
    {
        foreach (string skName in rk.GetSubKeyNames())
        {
            using (RegistryKey sk = rk.OpenSubKey(skName))
            {
                try
                {
                    lstInstalled.Items.Add(sk.GetValue("DisplayName"));
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                { }
            }
        }
    }
}