Get the Registry Details of Your System Using WMI Class

Introduction

This article describes how to get the Registry details of your system using a WMI Class. Here I will get the information from the Win32_Registry class.

What Win32_Registry is

The Win32_Registry WMI class represents the system registry on a computer system running Windows.

Design

Create a new Windows Forms Application Project.

Add one button control to the form.

Design your screen as in the following screen:

Next add a reference for "System.Management".

To add the reference use the following procedure.

Go to Solution Explorer, select the project and right-click on that and choose "Add Reference" from the menu.

A window will open; in that choose the ".Net" tab.

It will show a list. In that list, choose "System.Management" and click the "OK" Button.

Now go to the code view.

Add the namespace "using System.Management;".

Write the following code in the Button Click event:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
SelectQuery Sq = new SelectQuery("Win32_Registry");
ManagementObjectSearcher objOSDetails = new ManagementObjectSearcher(Sq);
ManagementObjectCollection osDetailsCollection = objOSDetails.Get();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (ManagementObject mo in osDetailsCollection)
{
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("Class : {0}", mo["__class"].ToString()));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("Caption : {0}", mo["Caption"].ToString()));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("CurrentSize: {0}", mo["CurrentSize"].ToString()));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("Description: {0}", mo["Description"].ToString()));
DateTime dt = ManagementDateTimeConverter.ToDateTime(mo["InstallDate"].ToString());
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("InstallDate: {0}", dt));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("MaximumSize: {0}", mo["MaximumSize"].ToString()));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("Name : {0}", mo["Name"].ToString()));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("ProposedSize: {0}", mo["ProposedSize"].ToString()));
sb.AppendLine(string.Format("Status : {0}", mo["Status"].ToString()));
}
MessageBox.Show(sb.ToString());
}

In the code above I am getting the information from Win32_Registry and showing it in a Message Box on a button click.

SelectQuery

It represents a WMI Query Language (WQL) SELECT data query.

ManagementObjectSearcher

It retrieves a collection of management objects based on a specified query.

This class is one of the more commonly used entry points to retrieve management information.

ManagementObjectCollection

It represents various collections of management objects retrieved using WMI.

Now build your application. Click on the button. It will show the Registry details in a Message box.