08 December 2004

Display build number and OS version on desktop

Something which you often see Microsoft people do in their demonstrations is have the Operating System description and build number displayed on their desktop. While sysinternals do a fabulous job with their Background Info (bginfo) tool (in fact I use this myself), there is a built in facility right out the box in Windows. In the registry, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Control Panel, Desktop, change the value of PaintDesktopVersion from 0 to 1. Logoff and back on again. Very useful when you're working with lots of virtual and test machines.

This works for Windows 2000, Windows 2003 and Windows XP, but I haven't tested NT, 9x or Me. There's also a knowledge base article available. Of course, the usual precautions about updating the registry etc., etc....


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Comments

# Thomas Tomiczek said:
It would be even better if computer and domain name would ALSO be shown.

You know, expecially in the scenario you mentioned with lots of VM's :-)
08 December 04 at 10:33 AM
# TOURNEY LOGIC LINK BLOG said:
12 December 04 at 10:33 PM
# Mario Londono said:
You can also doing this by using the Tweak UI Power Toys.
13 December 04 at 3:24 PM
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