How to Read Remote Registry Keys?

Question

I need to be able to read the values in a specific Registry Key from a list of Remote Computers. I can do this locally with the following code

   using Microsoft.Win32;

        RegistryKey rkey = Registry.LocalMachine;
        RegistryKey rkeySoftware=rkey.OpenSubKey("Software");
        RegistryKey rkeyVendor = rkeySoftware.OpenSubKey("VendorName");
        RegistryKey rkeyVersions = rkeyVendor.OpenSubKey("Versions");

        String[] ValueNames = rkeyVersions.GetValueNames();
        foreach (string name in ValueNames)
        {
          MessageBox.Show(name + ": " + rkeyVersions.GetValue(name).ToString());
        }

but I don't know how to get the same info for a Remote Computer. Am I even using the right approach or should I be looking at WMI or something else?

Answer 1

This is the solution I went with in the end:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;


// add a reference to Cassia (MIT license)
// https://code.google.com/p/cassia/

using Microsoft.Win32; 

namespace RemoteRegistryRead2
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            String domain = "theDomain";
            String user = "theUserName";
            String password = "thePassword";
            String host = "machine-x11";


            using (Cassia.UserImpersonationContext userContext = new Cassia.UserImpersonationContext(domain + "\\" + user, password))
            {
                string userName = System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name;
                System.Console.WriteLine("userName: " + userName);

                RegistryKey baseKey = RegistryKey.OpenRemoteBaseKey(RegistryHive.LocalMachine, host);
                RegistryKey key = baseKey.OpenSubKey(@"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName\ComputerName");

                String computerName = key.GetValue("ComputerName").ToString();
                Console.WriteLine(computerName);
            }
        }
    }
}

Works like a charm :]