title: Programmatically (not manually) finding the path where Git is installed on a Windows system
body: <p>I'd like to write a small build helper tool that shall read some properties of the current Git working directory, like the last commit hash, whether there's modified files and so on. I found that it is easier to use the installed Git binaries instead of reading the .git directory with its compressed files in an unknown format. But my tools must be as portable as possible. It's intended for .NET applications, so the only requirement should be .NET 2.0 or newer.</p>
  
  <p>Now how can I find the path where Git is installed? There's a default one that is used if the user has just clicked through the Git installer. But it may be different. And when I see all the programme files in git/bin, I really don't want that to be in my %PATH% (which other tools like TortoiseGit don't seem to require, too). I haven't found any path clues in the registry.</p>
  
  <p>What algorithm could I use to find Git, that is not a full file system scan? (Did I already say it needs to be fast?)</p>