[SOLVED] Detect if WebView2 is installed on clients machine (VB.NET)

Detect if WebView2 is installed on clients machine (VB.NET)

I am looking for a way to detect if WebView2 runtime is installed on the clients machines so that i can display using the old ie browser instead if they don't have it installed. I am using VB.NET.

Thanks

Solution

You can refer to this doc about how to check if the WebView2 Runtime is already installed. To verify, complete one of the following actions:

Inspect if the pv (REG_SZ) regkey exists and is not null or empty. Find pv (REG_SZ) at the following location:

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}

VB.NET code to check pv regkey:

 Dim readValue = My.Computer.Registry.GetValue("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}", "pv", Nothing)
 If readValue Is Nothing Then
     'Key doesn't exist
 Else
     'Key existed, check value
 End If

Run GetAvailableCoreWebView2BrowserVersionString and ensure the versionInfo is NULL.

It uses C++ in the doc. For VB.NET, the corresponding method is GetAvailableBrowserVersionString(String). You can refer to the doc about how to use it in VB.NET.