How To: Detect Windows Media Center Version

If your program is depending on a specified version of Windows Media Center, just try the following code to identify Windows Media Center versions.

Sample Code:

//
// Get Windows Media Center version from registry
// Function return false if no media center is installed on your windows
//
// Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center
// Registry value name: Ident
// Registry value data type: REG_SZ
//
bool GetMediaCenterIdent(wstring& wstrIdent)
{
  bool bRtn = false;

  HKEY hkResult = NULL;
  LONG lRetOpen = ::RegOpenKeyExW(
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,
    L"SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Media Center",
    NULL, KEY_READ, &hkResult);

  if(lRetOpen == ERROR_SUCCESS)
  {
    WCHAR wszRet[2048] = {0};
    DWORD type_1 = REG_SZ;
    DWORD cbData = sizeof(wszRet);

    LONG lRetQuery = ::RegQueryValueExW(hkResult, L"Ident", NULL,
      &type_1, (unsigned char *)wszRet, &cbData);
    if(lRetQuery == ERROR_SUCCESS)
    {
      wstrIdent = wszRet;
      bRtn = true;
    }
  }

  if(hkResult)
  {
    ::RegCloseKey(hkResult);
    hkResult = NULL;
  }

  return bRtn;
}

Ident value v.s Windows Media Center version

< 2.7 = Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002
2.7 or 2.8 = Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
3.0 = Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
3.1 = Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 1
4.0 = Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 2
5.0 = Windows Vista
5.1 = Windows Vista with Media Center TV Pack 2008
6.0 = Windows 7

Reference on MSDN:
Identifying Windows Media Center Versions