howto detect settings using vb

here are i few setting that i want to detect using vb:

1. current version of directx installed
2. default video card and rendering options
3. default sound card
4. default joystick
5. cpu type
6. cpu speed
7. total ram
8. ram transfer rate
9. vram transfer rate
10. current language

im sure all this can be access using the registry, but i dont know how to do it, if you could give me an example for one of the above, im sure i could assimilate the code for the rest

THANKS

Probably all those except for #8 and #9 have their own api calls.

I would be genuinely surprised if Windows bothered keeping track of #8 and #9. You'd probably have to device a way to benchmark them in your program.