How to determine the version of Windows by using Visual C++

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This article was previously published under Q307394

SUMMARY

This article demonstrates how to determine which operating system is in use on the system where your application is running. It differentiates between Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

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Requirements

This article assumes that you have an intermediate-level understanding of C++ programming.

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Windows Version Data

To determine the operating system that is running on a given system, the following data is needed:

Collapse this tableExpand this table

	Windows 95	Windows 98	Windows ME	Windows NT 4	Windows 2000	Windows XP
PlatformID	1	1	1	2	2	2
Major version	4	4	4	4	5	5
Minor version	0	10	90	0	0	1

NOTE: although the code in this article does check for all 32-bit Windows versions, neither Visual Studio .NET nor the .NET Framework is supported on Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51.

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Obtain the Operating System Information

Create a pointer to an OperatingSystem class and assign the current operating system information to it:

System::OperatingSystem *osInfo = System::Environment::OSVersion;

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Determine the Platform ID

The first step in the logical evaluation of the operating system information is to determine which platform is in use, as shown below. This is done by using the PlatformID. PlatformID is a property of the OperatingSystem class. An enumerated value of "Win32Windows" means an operating system of the Windows 9x family of products. "WinNT" indicates an operating system of the Windows NT family.

switch(osInfo->Platform)
    {
        case System::PlatformID::Win32Windows:         
            {
             //code to determine specific Windows 9x version
            }

       case System::PlatformID::Win32NT:
           {
              //code to determine specific Windows NT version
           }
       
     }

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Determine the Specific Windows 9x Version

If the platform has been determined to be Windows 9x, the major or minor version can be analyzed to determine the specific version, as the following code demonstrates.

//platform is win9x
case System::PlatformID::Win32Windows:
     
switch (osInfo->Version->Minor)
    {
        case 0:
            Console::WriteLine ("Windows 95");
            break;
        case 10:
            if(osInfo->Version->Revision.ToString()=="2222A")
                Console::WriteLine("Windows 98 Second Edition");
            else
                 Console::WriteLine("Windows 98");
                 break;
        case  90:
                 Console::WriteLine("Windows ME");
                 break;
     }break;

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Determine the Specific Windows NT Version

If the platform has been determined to be Windows NT, the major or minor version can be analyzed to determine the specific version:

//platform is NT
case System::PlatformID::Win32NT:

switch(osInfo->Version->Major)
    {
        case 3:
            Console::WriteLine("Windows NT 3.51");
            break;
        case 4:
            Console::WriteLine("Windows NT 4.0");
            break;
        case 5:
            if (osInfo->Version->Minor==0) 
                Console::WriteLine("Windows 2000");
            else
                Console::WriteLine("Windows XP");
                break;
     }break;

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Building the Example

The following steps show how you can build a test scenario to demonstrate this functionality.

In Visual Studio .NET, create a new Managed C++ application called determine0S. This creates a simple "hello world" application. Open DetermineOS.cpp in the code editor by double-clicking it in the Solution Explorer window.
Delete all of the code in DetermineOS.cpp.

Paste in the following code:

#include "stdafx.h"

#using <mscorlib.dll>

using namespace System;

// This is the entry point for this application
#ifdef _UNICODE
int wmain(void)
#else
int main(void)
#endif
{
   //get OperatingSystem info from the system namespace
   System::OperatingSystem *osInfo = System::Environment::OSVersion;

   //is the platform win9x or NT
   switch(osInfo->Platform)
   {
      //platform is win9x
      case System::PlatformID::Win32Windows:
    
         switch (osInfo->Version->Minor)
         {
              case 0:
                 Console::WriteLine ("Windows 95");
              break;
              case 10:
              if(osInfo->Version->Revision.ToString() == "2222A")
                 Console::WriteLine("Windows 98 Second Edition");
              else
                 Console::WriteLine("Windows 98");
              break;
              case  90:
                 Console::WriteLine("Windows ME");
              break;
         }
         break;
			
         //platform is NT
         case System::PlatformID::Win32NT:

            switch(osInfo->Version->Major)
            {
               case 3:
                  Console::WriteLine("Windows NT 3.51");
               break;
               case 4:
                  Console::WriteLine("Windows NT 4.0");
               break;
               case 5:
               if (osInfo->Version->Minor==0) 
                  Console::WriteLine("Windows 2000");
               else
                  Console::WriteLine("Windows XP");
               break;
            }break;
   }

   Console::ReadLine();
   return 0;
}

Press CTRL+F5 to run the application. Note that the Windows version is displayed in the console window.

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REFERENCES

For more general information about Visual C++ .NET, visit the following Microsoft Usenet newsgroup and Microsoft Web site:

Microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vc (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=5870)

Visual C++ .NET (2002) Support Center (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?xmlid=fh%3ben-us%3bvcnet)

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