Detection Archives

Detection keys for Visual Studio 2015

April 13, 2015 Apr 13, 2015 04/13/15

Heath Stewart

Administrators and developers who need to detect whether Visual Studio 2015 is installed can use similar registry keys as with past releases. This time around, though, we’ve made some changes to the lineup of products but the registry scheme remains the same. Most of the detection keys are found in the 32-bit registry hive – the ones you...

Detection keys for Visual Studio 2012

August 3, 2012 Aug 3, 2012 08/3/12

Heath Stewart

Administrators and developers who need to detect if Visual Studio 2012 is installed on a machine can use similar keys as those used for past releases like Visual Studio 2010. In general, these detection keys are always found in the 32-bit registry hive with a pattern like: So if you needed to detect if VS2012 Ultimate is installed, you ...

Detection keys for .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010

May 4, 2010 May 4, 2010 05/4/10

Heath Stewart

Now that Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 have been released, developers may wonder how to detect them on the system. As with previous releases, we support registry detection of either product family and Windows Installer component detection for Visual Studio. Detecting either product uses a separate set of supported keys. ....

Detecting Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1

May 29, 2009 May 29, 2009 05/29/09

Heath Stewart

The Visual Studio 2008 RTM and SP1 detection keys are largely the same as the Visual Studio 2005 SP1 detection keys, and are documented below. But there is a caveat for released and upcoming versions: the shared detection value can be overwritten by an older installation of the same release.For example, if you installed VS2008 Professional, ...

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1, and How to Detect It

November 26, 2007 Nov 26, 2007 11/26/07

Heath Stewart

No doubt you've heard the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 was released. Aaron Stebner has posted a list of links to 3.5, as well as 2.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and 3.0 SP1. It's important to note that if you install 3.5 you're actually getting 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1 both.The .NET Framework 3.5 consists of the following: While 2.0 SP1 and 3.0 SP1 are ...

Detecting Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

December 17, 2006 Dec 17, 2006 12/17/06

Heath Stewart

Now that Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 is released, it can be detected programmatically in various ways. Registry detection is recommended for ease and is less impacted by future changes to the product installation. Because there are many different Visual Studio 2005 editions and service pack 1 patch packages, you may need to perform ...

Detecting Patches in .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005

April 7, 2006 Apr 7, 2006 04/7/06

Heath Stewart

Aaron Stebner posted some sample code to detect whether the .NET Framework 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0 were installed and at what service pack level they are. Basically, the .NET Framework installation writes a common, version-specific registry key in the following location along with an SP level registry value. The sample below for an English (United ...

Visual Studio Setup