programmatically get the location of Microsoft office PIA

Question

I have installed Microsoft Office 2010 the location is
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Visual Studio Tools for Office\PIA\Office14"
I need to dynamically load an assembly from this location.
Is it possible to get the location "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Visual Studio Tools for Office\PIA\Office14" programmatically?

how about saving the path on a config file or as a environment variable. — Prabhu Murthy
@CodeIgnoto, I need to get the location of Office PIA in any machine. — sharmila
@CodeIgnoto, Can you pleaes tell me how can I get it using registry? — sharmila

Prabhu Murthy Prabhu Murthy · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-26T12:19:01

Here is the WMI query to retrieve the installation path.You will have to pass the program name after the like clause in the WMI query.Since i didnt know the program name,i have used a like clause.If you know the exact program name use it along with "=" operator.

Add a reference to the DLL (System.Management).

Using System.Management

    ManagementObjectSearcher WMIQuery = new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT * FROM Win32_Product WHERE CAPTION LIKE \"%office%\" ");
    ManagementObjectCollection WMIQueryCollection = WMIQuery.Get();

    foreach (ManagementObject MO in WMIQueryCollection)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Caption : " + MO["Caption"].ToString());
        Console.WriteLine("InstallLocation : " + (MO["InstallLocation"] == null ? " " : MO["InstallLocation"].ToString()));
    }

Here is the MSDN link that will get you started with writing WMI queries(WQL).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa394606(v=vs.85).aspx

programmatically get the location of Microsoft office PIA

2 Answers