vb.net program determine if runtime engine is installed

[erfigge]

I have a vb.net application we are distributing and it calls a couple of vi's that I have bundled into a dll.  Obviously we need to have the runtime engine installed on the machines we are deploying this application to.  I was wondering if there was a registry entry or some other way to determine if the runtime engine was already installed on a windows machine.  

I know I could build my own installer and set registry keys, however the minimum runtime engine installer works and it is only 28 mb, where the smallest installer I have been able to build is about 140 mb.  So, as I said I am faced with two options, figure out a way to build my own minimum installer or figure out how to determine if the standard NI minimum installer is already install.

I haven't been able to find anything relating to this in my searches.

Thanks,

Eric.

[MrHappyAsthma · Accepted solution]

There may be a more elegant way, but you could always check <Program Files>\National Instruments\Shared\LabVIEW Run-Time\####

EDIT:

Oh I found it by the way (with a little Regedit.exe searching):  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\National Instruments\LabVIEW Run-Time\#### 

*where the pound signs represent the version number.

[Hooovahh]

Indeed the registry is the way to go.  Here is a post on LAVA I did a while ago where I use AutoIt to get the different versions of LabVIEW installed (development or just RTE) and then run the appropriate version for the one installed.

http://lavag.org/topic/17803-run-exe-based-on-installed-run-time/

The source code is included so you should be able to understand the registry keys I read to find the versions installed.

[erfigge]

Thank you everyone.  Found the registry keys and that is exactly what I was looking for!