You can use the Windows Update Agent API to query installed updates (it has a lot of information in fact), something like this:

  // in .NET, you need to add a reference
  // to the WUAPI COM component located in \windows\system32\wuapi.dll
  // to be able to access the WUAPI object model
  UpdateSearcher searcher = new UpdateSearcher();
  searcher.Online = false; // you can remove this line if you allow the API to get online to search
  var res = searcher.Search("IsInstalled=0"); // search not installed update
  foreach (IUpdate update in res.Updates)
  {
      Console.WriteLine("update:" + update.Title);

      // get history information
      // this can return nothing for example it it was hidden by end user
      // note we use update's identity and rev number here for matching a specific update
      var histories = searcher.QueryHistory(0, searcher.GetTotalHistoryCount()).OfType<IUpdateHistoryEntry>().Where(
          h => h.UpdateIdentity.UpdateID == update.Identity.UpdateID && h.UpdateIdentity.RevisionNumber == update.Identity.RevisionNumber);
      foreach (var history in histories)
      {
          Console.WriteLine(" code:" + history.ResultCode);
          Console.WriteLine(" hr:0x" + history.HResult.ToString("X8"));
      }
  }

However, that will not tell you what were the inner rules (registry/wmi, etc.) used to determine if the updagres were installed. This is not exposed by the WUAPI.