What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Blake Morrison - MSFT — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:44:07 GMT

Another easy way to check what service pack you have installed is to run the following from a command prompt:

wmic os get servicepackmajorversion

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Drewfus — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:53:50 GMT

@Me: "Won't the 'ver' command be useful in determining this?"

Yes, but not very. It would be far preferable if Windows had an extended version of the 'ver' command that could return all sorts of versioning data. Like this: forum.sysinternals.com/extended-ver-command_topic23137.html I should probably add firmware related switches to that list, like ACPI version, which would be beneficial regarding some of the new power related functionality in Windows 8.

@Fawwaz: "...I would like to know how to check what service pack im using?"

Same point again.

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Fawwaz — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:33:02 GMT

I am using a AMD Athlon 64 A8N-VM CSM, what audio drivers should i download/use?

P.S. Another thing is, I would like to know how to check what service pack im using?

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Me — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:21:59 GMT

Won't the 'ver' command be useful in determining this? Can you not have a condition based upon that version information? Or would that not work?

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Mark Sowul — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:35:30 GMT

There is a similar bug in the Windows Easy Transfer when migrating from x86 to x64 with Outlook as your default mail handler. It copies the handler to the 64-bit key instead of the Wow64 one, and so the Start Menu "Mail" entry ceases to work. Fun one to track down.

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Justin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:34:42 GMT

Thanks for the post. I think this would be better served in a dev blog. I think the part that would be more useful to readers of this blog would be how you went about resolving this. I assume that once you saw this error you ran regmon and perhaps filemon to see what this app was accessing at the time and found that it hit this regkey and failed to retrieve it. After locating what regkey it was hitting i would imagine you could easily look up what it should contain, create it and insert the info the app was looking for in order to satisfy the apps system check.

Thanks

Justin

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

lrms — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:44:56 GMT

>> The application was checking for the OS version in a registry value, specifically: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CSDVersion.

I don't believe it was an 64-bit application trying to read this specific hive. Most probably it was an 32-bit application reading directly "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CSDVersion", but Windows x64 did its virtualization magic and returned what 64-bit programs see as "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CSDVersion".

I can assure that reading this key ("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CSDVersion") in Windows 2003 x64 (and Windows XP x64) from 32-bit apps works perfectly and returns the correct, expected, value (the same a x64 application will see).

So, in short, isn't there a bug in the virtualization of the registry done for 32-bit programs in Vista SP1?

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

Alex — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:18:29 GMT

Hi Molotov,

The issue is a 32-bit application running on an x64 version of Windows and checking for CSDVersion registry key... so you are right...

re: What OS / Service Pack Am I Running?

molotov — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:50:07 GMT

Hi Scott,

>> As operating systems evolve, there is no guarantee that registry information will persist between operating systems, or in some cases there may be changes between service packs for the same operating system. <<

True, but the issue you describe seems to be a case of a 32-bit installer running on an x64 version of Windows, and running into registry redirection, doesn't it? Or was the application coded to explicitly check for the value under Wow6432Node?