[python-win32] Is there a _simple_ way to find out what version of Windows you are running?

[Tim Golden]

On 08/10/2015 13:37, Tim Golden wrote:
> On 08/10/2015 10:56, Laura Creighton wrote:
>> Hi, I am one of the python.org webmasters.  We get people -- often children
>> who want to install python on their computers but don't know what OS they
>> are running.  Nearly all of these people are running Windows, though I
>> did get somebody who was running FreeBSD the other day. :)
>>
>> Microsoft tells you to do this:
>> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/which-operating-system
>>
>> This is asking an awful lot of the people who are mailing webmaster
>> and who don't know what OS they are running.  It is futile to tell
>> these people methods to find out what OS version they are running that vary
>> depending on what OS you have, so  I am looking for a thing you can do on
>> any version of windows which will reliably spit out the correct
>> answer.
> 
> Windows + Pause/Break [*] will produce the system info window showing
> the Windows version, including Service Pack, and bit-ness, for any
> recent version of Windows.
> 
> It does look slightly different on each version, but the Version
> string/name is always at the top in a section called something like
> "Windows edition". I'll see if I can get screenshots up somewhere.

To follow up, I've dropped a Q&D blog post here:

http://ramblings.timgolden.me.uk/2015/10/08/what-windows-version-am-i-running/

with instructions on how to bring the window up, plus examples from
every system I can get my hands on, which doesn't include Vista or 10,
but I assume Vista looks like 7 and 10 looks like 8.

Graham Bloice pointed out that the Pause|Break key isn't present on
newer, laptop/tablet keyboards, so I've added the suggestion of
right-clicking on "My Computer". I've also included the winver.exe
suggestion and msinfo32.exe, both of which give most of the information.
AFAICT, winver.exe doesn't tell you whether you're running 32 or 64/bit.

Hopefully that will help the triage at any rate.

TJG