---
title: "Getting the list of installed programs on the local machine"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/23/getting-the-list-of-installed-programs-on-the-local-machine.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/23/getting-the-list-of-installed-programs-on-the-local-machine.html"
published: "2003-09-23T20:27:00"
updated: "2003-09-23T20:27:00"
tags: [".Net Quotations"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Here's a snippet from the win-tech-off-topic list: Getting the list of installed programs on the local machine: static void GetInstalled() { string uninstallKey = @\"SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Uninstall\";…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Getting the list of installed programs on the local machine

By Roy Osherove September 23, 2003 In [.Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations)

**Historical article** · Originally published September 23, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

Here's a snippet from the win-tech-off-topic list:

Getting the list of installed programs on the local machine:

 static void GetInstalled()
{
      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))
                  {
                        Console.WriteLine(sk.GetValue("DisplayName"));
                  }
            }
      }
}

## More in .Net Quotations

[All posts in .Net Quotations](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-quotations)

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- Sep 23, 2003

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- Sep 23, 2003

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---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/