<p>Some programs read the company name that you entered when Windows was installed and display it in the program. How is this done? Are they simply reading the name from the registry?</p>

Check the API SystemParametersInfo and a constant named SPI_GETOEMINFO
```
```
int details = SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETOEMINFO, OEMInfo.Capacity, OEMInfo, 0);
        if (details != 0)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(OEMInfo.ToString());
        }
```
```
That will return the companyname for the OEM. I dont think you have to enter company name when installing windows, only computer name ( I can be wrong here)
You can see all the constants and examples here:
http://pinvoke.net/default.aspx/Enums.SystemMetric