Getting the Version of an OleDB Provider

There may a much simpler way of determining the version of an OleDb provider (like OraOledb.Oracle.1) than I have shown below, but I have yet to find one.

The OleDbConnection object will tell you the version of the Server through its ServerVersion property:

Dim myConn As New OleDbConnection(g_gtech.GetConnectionString)
myConn.Open()
Dim versionStr as String = myConn.ServerVersion.ToString
myConn.Dispose()

But, I often want to the know the version of the Provider itself. The only way I have found to do this is to sift through the registry and read the ProductVersion off the provider DLL itself.

For example:

Dim versionStr as String = _
GetProviderVersion("OraOleDb.Oracle.1")

Here is the supporting code:


Public Function GetProviderVersion(ByVal providerName As String) As String

Try
Dim clsid As String = GetRegistryValue(Registry.LocalMachine, _
"SOFTWARE\Classes\" + providerName + "\clsid", "")

If clsid.Trim = "" Then Return "Not Installed"
Dim path As String = _
GetRegistryValue(Registry.LocalMachine, "SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\" + clsid + "\InprocServer32", "")

Dim Info As FileVersionInfo
Info = FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(path)
Return Info.ProductVersion.ToString
Catch ex As Exception

Return "Unable to get Version"

End Try

End Function

Public Function GetRegistryValue(ByVal regKey As RegistryKey, _
ByVal subKey As String, ByVal valueName As String) As String

Dim value As String = ""
Dim registryKey As RegistryKey = regKey
Dim registrySubKey As RegistryKey
registrySubKey = registryKey.OpenSubKey(subKey)
If registrySubKey IsNot Nothing Then
Try
value = registrySubKey.GetValue(valueName).ToString
Catch ex As Exception
value = ""
End Try
registrySubKey.Close()
End If
Return value
End Function

If there is a simple or more elegant way to find the Provider version, please comment.