Does Registry "SubKey" Exist Or Not

[bigreid]

I have done a master search of the Forum for my answer, found a lot of Registry questions, but
none dealing in the exact manner, so I apologize if I have over looked anything.

I am in Visual Basic, within Visual Studio Ultimate 2013.

Problem involves working with the Registry.

I have no problem reading Key values, Creating, and Deleting Keys etc.

However, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to "simply" dictate if a "SubKey" exists, ....or not.

That's it.

Nothing fancy, nothing above, nothing beyond.

As an example:

When my VB program starts, I want it to check for the "existence" of a "SubKey" entitled, "my_prog_name"

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\my_prog_name

If it exists, I would like to be returned a "1", or, "True", etc.

If it does not exist, "0", or "False".

I am not looking for a Key, "Value", ...just if a certain "SubKey" Exists or not.


You get the picture, just like in "old days" VB programming, sweet and simple.

It's the little things, sometimes, that can be the most hassle.



Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[jmcilhinney]

Are you saying that you want to know whether that key exists at any level at all under a particular hive? If so then you'd need to do a recursive search. At each level, you can call OpenSubKey on your Registrykey object. It will return a RegistryKey object if the subkey exists and Nothing if it doesn't.

[dunfiddlin]

You get the picture, just like in "old days" VB programming, sweet and simple.

I don't know what you call the old days but VB programming existed long before the Registry did and I certainly don't remember it ever being sweet and simple!

[bigreid]

Update:

Figured it out.

It wasn't a broad search I was after, I was looking at a "specific" Registry location for the existence of a "specific" Key.

Thanks to all for the help.

Dim regVersion As Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey


regVersion = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey("*\shell\my_prog_name", True)


If regVersion Is Nothing Then
    MsgBox("0")
Else
    MsgBox("1")
End If

[jmcilhinney]

Update:

Figured it out.

It wasn't a broad search I was after, I was looking at a "specific" Registry location for the existence of a "specific" Key.

Thanks to all for the help.

Dim regVersion As Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey


regVersion = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey("*\shell\my_prog_name", True)


If regVersion Is Nothing Then
    MsgBox("0")
Else
    MsgBox("1")
End If

Well, well... I rarely use the Registry and I didn't know that the RegistryKey class supported wildcards. I've learned something new.