DtWinVer

Features

Enclosed is a routine which provides a comprehensive method to determine which OS the program that calls it is running on. All methods it uses are fully documented on various articles on the MSDN CD. The routine provides the emulated OS aswell as the underlying OS. e.g to a Dos program Windows 95 looks like MS-DOS 7.0. A full list of the OS’s it can detect are:

• Win32s
• Windows 95
• Windows 98
• NT Workstation 3.1 and later
• NT Server 3.1 and later
• Windows for Workgroups
• Windows 3.0 - 3.11
• Dos

Some of the possible scenarios it can report on are:

• "You are running an emulated Dos v5.50 On NT"
• "You are running an emulated Windows 3.95 on Windows 95 v4.0 Build 950"
• "You are running Windows for Workgroups on Dos v6.22"
• "You are running NT Server v3.51"

History

8 May 1997:

• Fix to remove unicode and tchar code when being compiled for Win16.

13 September 1998

• Updated the sample app plus the dtwinver code to explicitly support Windows 98.

API

GetOSVersion
IsUnderlyingWindows95
IsUnderlyingWindows98

GetOSVersion

BOOL GetOSVersion(LPOS_VERSION_INFO lpVersionInformation)

Parameters

lpVersionInformation A pointer to a structure of the following form:

typedef struct _OS_VERSION_INFO

{

DWORD dwOSVersionInfoSize;

 

//What version of OS is being emulated

DWORD dwEmulatedMajorVersion;

DWORD dwEmulatedMinorVersion;

DWORD dwEmulatedBuildNumber;

DWORD dwEmulatedPlatformId;

#ifdef _WIN32

TCHAR szEmulatedCSDVersion[128];

#else

char szEmulatedCSDVersion[128];

#endif

//What version of OS is really running

DWORD dwUnderlyingMajorVersion;

DWORD dwUnderlyingMinorVersion;

DWORD dwUnderlyingBuildNumber;

DWORD dwUnderlyingPlatformId;

#ifdef _WIN32

TCHAR szUnderlyingCSDVersion[128];

#else

char szUnderlyingCSDVersion[128];

#endif

} OS_VERSION_INFO, *POS_VERSION_INFO, FAR *LPOS_VERSION_INFO;

This will be filled in upon a successful return from the function.

Return Value

TRUE if the function was successful otherwise FALSE.

IsUnderlyingWindows95

BOOL IsUnderlyingWindows95(LPOS_VERSION_INFO lpVersionInformation);

Remarks

TRUE if the structure sent in represents Windows 95 otherwise FALSE. See the code in test.cpp for its usage.

IsUnderlyingWindows98

BOOL IsUnderlyingWindows98(LPOS_VERSION_INFO lpVersionInformation);

Remarks

TRUE if the structure sent in represents Windows 98 otherwise FALSE. See the code in test.cpp for its usage.

Notes

The code uses some C++’isms and uses MFC header files. If you want, it would be a very simple matter of commenting a few lines here and there to get it to work on any standard "C" compiler on any PC OS. 3 mak files are also included which builds a simple application which reports the OS version, through a message box on Windows and stdio in Dos.

The mak files are:

• dosver.mak (VC 1.5x Dos)
• winver.mak (VC 1.5x Win16)
• winver32.mak (VC 4.x Win32).

Areas where the code may prove useful are:

• A Dos program wants to know if it can be allowed access to hardware ports which is not available on NT, but is available on Dos, Windows 3.x & Windows 95.
• A Win32 program wants to know if the Windows 95 UI is available.
• A Win16 program wants to know if it can call the Win32 API via generic thunking. 

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

PJ Naughter
Email: pjn@indigo.ie
Web: http://indigo.ie/~pjn
13th September 1998