Reading a value from registry C#

Question

I am trying to read the recent

this is the code i have right now:

RegistryKey registryKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\Visual Studio\12.0\ProjectMRUList");
            string data2 = (string)registryKey.GetValue("File1".ToUpper());
            recentProjects.Items.Add(data2);

i keep getting a null error.

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

The error is on

string data2 = (string)registryKey.GetValue("File1");

Answer 1

The subkey is actually "VisualStudio", not "Visual Studio". Try the below:

    RegistryKey registryKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ProjectMRUList");
    string data2 = (string)registryKey.GetValue("File1".ToUpper());

Or better still, you can have control over whether the environment is 32 or 64 bit, for example...

using (var hklm = RegistryKey.OpenBaseKey(RegistryHive.CurrentUser, RegistryView.Registry64))
        {
            using (var key = hklm.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0\ProjectMRUList"))
            {
                string data2 = (string)key.GetValue("File1".ToUpper());
            }
        }