How to determine which 32-bit Windows version is being used

An application may need to perform tasks differently depending on which operating system is running on the computer. This article shows, by example, how to differentiate between Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Window NT 3.51, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 2000, and Microsoft Windows XP.

The Win32 GetVersionEx function returns information that a program can use to identify the operating system. Among those values are the major and minor revision numbers and a platform identifier. With the introduction of Windows 98, it now takes a more involved logical evaluation to determine which version of Windows is in use. The listing below provides the data needed to evaluate the OSVERSIONINFO structure populated by the GetVersionEx function:

Step-by-step example

1. Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
2. From the Project menu, add a Standard Module to the project.
3. Insert the following code into Module1:

         Public Declare Function GetVersionExA Lib "kernel32" _
                  (lpVersionInformation As OSVERSIONINFO) As Integer
    
               Public Type OSVERSIONINFO
                  dwOSVersionInfoSize As Long
                  dwMajorVersion As Long
                  dwMinorVersion As Long
                  dwBuildNumber As Long
                  dwPlatformId As Long
                  szCSDVersion As String * 128
               End Type
    
               Public Function getVersion() As String
                  Dim osinfo As OSVERSIONINFO
                  Dim retvalue As Integer
    
                  osinfo.dwOSVersionInfoSize = 148
                  osinfo.szCSDVersion = Space$(128)
                  retvalue = GetVersionExA(osinfo)
    
                  With osinfo
                  Select Case .dwPlatformId
    
                   Case 1
                   
                       Select Case .dwMinorVersion
                           Case 0
                               getVersion = "Windows 95"
                           Case 10
                               getVersion = "Windows 98"
                           Case 90
                               getVersion = "Windows Millennium"
                       End Select
       
                   Case 2
                       Select Case .dwMajorVersion
                           Case 3
                               getVersion = "Windows NT 3.51"
                           Case 4
                               getVersion = "Windows NT 4.0"
                           Case 5
                               If .dwMinorVersion = 0 Then
                                   getVersion = "Windows 2000"
                               Else
                                   getVersion = "Windows XP"
                               End If
                       End Select
       
                   Case Else
                      getVersion = "Failed"
               End Select
    
                  End With
               End Function
   
   					

4. Add the following line of code to the Load event of Form1:

   MsgBox GetVersion()
   					

5. Run the project, and note that a message box displays the correct Windows version.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: