How to determine if the 32-bit Visual Studio 2013 redistributable is installed on a user's machine reliably via the Registry?

Dan Nissenbaum picture Dan Nissenbaum · Feb 11, 2014 · Viewed 12.7k times · Source

I am using DeployMaster to build an installer for a 32-bit Windows application written in C++ using Qt.

The executable depends on the Visual Studio 2013 redistributable - i.e., the 32-bit Visual Studio 2013 redistributable must be installed by the end user, prior to running this application.

I have googled, and looked at other StackOverflow questions. In particular, this link provides the exact Registry key to check, but for the case of VS 2008.

I need VS 2013, not VS 2008.

However, ideally it will be a reliable registry check - not a programmatic solution - because I can easily check a registry key with a DeployMaster installer. (If the system is determined to not have the redistributable installed, it's also easy to have the DeployMaster installer kick off the installer.)

Does anybody know a reliable method, preferably using a Registry key, that allows to make it possible to determine if the 32-bit VS 2013 redistributable is installed on an end-user's machine?

Answer

Nick Davis picture Nick Davis · Apr 15, 2015

I'm using these reg keys: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\VC\Runtimes\x86 Installed HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\VC\Runtimes\x64 Installed

I've confirmed that they appear only after the redist is installed, and they more closely match the ones for previous versions. e.g. VC++ 2010 is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\VC\VCRedist\x86 Installed HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\VC\VCRedist\x64 Installed