How to find the Windows version from the PowerShell command line

Question

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 o         


        

Answer 1

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

   [Environment]::OSVersion
   

   It is worth noting that the result is of type [System.Version], 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 class (always single instance), for example:

   (Get-WmiObject -class Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption
   

   will return something like

   Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Standard