How can I detect Windows 8.1 in a Desktop application

Question

In the Windows 8.1 preview Environment.OSVersion.Version returns the same version numbers as Windows 8. Is there alternative way of detecting Windows 8.1.

Answer 1

Use ntdll!RtlGetVersion. This is what both GetVersionEx and VerifyVersionInfo use, and it gives the correct version number. It takes a pointer to an OSVersionInfoExW structure, like GetVersionExW does. If it succeeds, it returns STATUS_SUCCESS (0).