Question

I’m writing a C# class that runs a Process (REG) to export registry keys. REG requires that you specify a filename to export to but I would rather have the output of REG directed to the standard output so I can capture it directly in my C# code (using Process.StandardOutput). Is there a way in PowerShell to specify the standard output as the filename?

Answer 1

If you have to use the REG program (rather than use PowerShell to query/dump the registry – or even just do it in the C# program itself), Probably the best you are going to get is to allow it to dump out to a temporary file, then pipe the contents of the file back to standard out and capture it in your C# program that way:

$guid = [Guid]::NewGuid().ToString("N")
REG EXPORT HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows "$env:temp\$guid" | Out-Null
Get-Content "$env:temp\$guid"
Remove-Item "$env:temp\$guid"

In case you were not aware: Using PowerShell, you can navigate the registry as though it were part of the file system. Perhaps this is helpful in some other regard?

cd HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows
dir