There is a much better and documented way to go: use the IP Helper API, especially the GetAdaptersAddresses function. Why?

Because:

- It is well-documented and stable. You can be assured that GetAdaptersAddresses will not be changed at some point in time as it is part of the official Windows API designed for this purpose across Windows versions: registry keys are implementation details, and they can change.

- It has complete information about network adapters detailed in IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, DNS, gateways, MAC addresses, interface indices, operational status, etc.

- The right abstraction: Gets the configured state of the network stack as used by netsh and not based on possibly stale or incomplete registry entries. It can derive DHCP versus static IP without going into the registry manually.

- Disconnect media: Even a single configuration isn't concerned whether the network cable is plugged in or the Wi-Fi connected (configuration is about the same, netsh being the match for that). Here's how to do it at a high level:

1. Include <iphlpapi.h> and link against iphlpapi.lib

2. Include <winsock2.h>, <ws2tcpip.h> for address structures and conversion functions Link ws2_32.lib Initialize Winsock (WSAStartup)

3. Call GetAdaptersAddresses first with NULL buffer pointer and size variable to get needed buffer size Check for ERROR_BUFFER_OVERFLOW

4. Allocate memory for buffer, e.g., malloc

5. Call GetAdaptersAddresses again with allocated buffer

6. If succeeded, iterate over linked list of IP_ADAPTER_ADDRESSES structures returned in buffer

7. For each adapter, iterate through its linked list of unicast addresses (PIP_ADAPTER_UNICAST_ADDRESS, starting from FirstUnicastAddress).

8. Access the Address.lpSockaddr field within the unicast address structure. Check sa_family (AF_INET for IPv4, AF_INET6 for IPv6).

9. Use functions like inet_ntop or WSAAddressToString to turn the binary IP address within the sockaddr_in or sockaddr_in6 structures into a human-readable string.

10. Free the buffer using free. Clean up Winsock (WSACleanup).

This is intended information on network configuration made using the intended Windows API, avoiding fragile registry parsing.