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

Question

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

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

I have implemented a working code example in C#. It uses the method CoreWebView2Environment.GetAvailableBrowserVersionString() to get the version.

I have tested with the regkey solution, but it did not work with Edge Chromium Beta, Dev or Canary. It only work when WebView2 runtime were installed.

public static class WebView2Install
{
    public static InstallInfo GetInfo()
    {
        var version = GetWebView2Version();

        return new InstallInfo(version);
    }

    private static string GetWebView2Version()
    {
        try
        {
            return CoreWebView2Environment.GetAvailableBrowserVersionString();
        }
        catch (Exception) { return ""; }
    }
}

public class InstallInfo
{
    public InstallInfo(string version) => (Version) = (version);

    public string Version { get; }

    public InstallType InstallType => Version switch
    {
            var version when version.Contains("dev") => InstallType.EdgeChromiumDev,
            var version when version.Contains("beta") => InstallType.EdgeChromiumBeta,
            var version when version.Contains("canary") => InstallType.EdgeChromiumCanary,
            var version when !string.IsNullOrEmpty(version) => InstallType.WebView2,
            _ => InstallType.NotInstalled
    };
}

public enum InstallType
{
    WebView2, EdgeChromiumBeta, EdgeChromiumCanary, EdgeChromiumDev, NotInstalled
}

I also have made a WPF application that uses WebView2 on GitHub, it also show you the usage of the above code.

KioskBrowser (GitHub)