How to find the Windows version from the PowerShell command line

How do I find which Windows version I'm using?

I'm using PowerShell 2.0 and tried:

PS C:\> ver
The term 'ver' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify tha
t the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:4
+ ver <<<<
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (ver:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

How do I do this?

Windows PowerShell 2.0:

$windows = New-Object -Type PSObject |
Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Caption -Value (Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption -PassThru |
Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Version -Value [Environment]::OSVersion.Version -PassThru

Windows PowerShell 3.0:

$windows = [PSCustomObject]@{
Caption = (Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption
Version = [Environment]::OSVersion.Version
}

For display (both versions):

"{0} ({1})" -f $windows.Caption, $windows.Version

$OSVersion = [Version](Get-ItemProperty -Path "$($Env:Windir)\System32\hal.dll" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).VersionInfo.FileVersion.Split()[0]

On Windows 10 returns: 10.0.10586.420

You can then use the variable to access properties for granular comparison

$OSVersion.Major equals 10
$OSVersion.Minor equals 0
$OSVersion.Build equals 10586
$OSVersion.Revision equals 420

Additionally, you can compare operating system versions using the following

If ([Version]$OSVersion -ge [Version]"6.1")
{
#Do Something
}

This will give you the **full version of Windows (including Revision/Build number)** unlike all the solutions above:

(Get-ItemProperty -Path c:\windows\system32\hal.dll).VersionInfo.FileVersion

Result:

10.0.10240.16392 (th1_st1.150716-1608)

As MoonStom says, `[Environment]::OSVersion` doesn't work properly on an upgraded Windows 8.1 (it returns a Windows 8 version): [link][1].

If you want to differentiate between Windows 8.1 (6.3.9600) and Windows 8 (6.2.9200), you can use `(Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).Version` to get the proper version. However this doesn't work in PowerShell 2. So use this:

$version = $null
try {
$version = (Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).Version
}
catch {
$version = [System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version | % {"{0}.{1}.{2}" -f $_.Major,$_.Minor,$_.Build}
}

[1]:

[To see links please register here]

Since you have access to the .NET library, you could access the [`OSVersion`][1] property of the [`System.Environment`][2] class to get this information. For the version number, there is the `Version` property.

For example,

PS C:\> [System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version

Major Minor Build Revision
----- ----- ----- --------
6 1 7601 65536

Details of Windows versions can be found [here][3].

[1]:

[To see links please register here]

[2]:

[To see links please register here]

[3]:

[To see links please register here]

1. To get the Windows version number, as Jeff notes in his [answer][1], use:

[Environment]::OSVersion

It is worth noting that the result is of type [`[System.Version]`][2], so it is possible to check for, say, Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 and later with

[Environment]::OSVersion.Version -ge (new-object 'Version' 6,1)

However this will not tell you if it is client or server Windows, nor the name of the version.

2. Use WMI's [`Win32_OperatingSystem`][3] class (always single instance), for example:

(Get-WmiObject -class Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption

will return something like

> Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Standard

[1]:

[To see links please register here]

[2]:

[To see links please register here]

[3]:

[To see links please register here]

Use:

Get-WmiObject -class win32_operatingsystem -computer computername | Select-Object Caption

If you want to differentiate between Windows 8.1 (6.3.9600) and Windows 8 (6.2.9200) use

(Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).Version

to get the proper version. `[Environment]::OSVersion` doesn't work properly in Windows 8.1 (it returns a Windows 8 version).

This will give you the full and CORRECT (the same version number that you find when you run winver.exe) version of Windows (including revision/build number) REMOTELY unlike all the other solutions (tested on Windows 10):

Function Get-OSVersion {
Param($ComputerName)
Invoke-Command -ComputerName $ComputerName -ScriptBlock {
$all = @()
(Get-Childitem c:\windows\system32) | ? Length | Foreach {

$all += (Get-ItemProperty -Path $_.FullName).VersionInfo.Productversion
}
$version = [System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version
$osversion = "$($version.major).0.$($version.build)"
$minor = @()
$all | ? {$_ -like "$osversion*"} | Foreach {
$minor += [int]($_ -replace".*\.")
}
$minor = $minor | sort | Select -Last 1

return "$osversion.$minor"
}
}