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

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).

Answer 2

I searched a lot to find out the exact version, because WSUS server shows the wrong version. The best is to get revision from UBR registry KEY.

    $WinVer = New-Object –TypeName PSObject
$WinVer | Add-Member –MemberType NoteProperty –Name Major –Value $(Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' CurrentMajorVersionNumber).CurrentMajorVersionNumber
$WinVer | Add-Member –MemberType NoteProperty –Name Minor –Value $(Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' CurrentMinorVersionNumber).CurrentMinorVersionNumber
$WinVer | Add-Member –MemberType NoteProperty –Name Build –Value $(Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' CurrentBuild).CurrentBuild
$WinVer | Add-Member –MemberType NoteProperty –Name Revision –Value $(Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' UBR).UBR
$WinVer

Answer 3

[solved]

#copy all the code below:
#save file as .ps1 run and see the magic

 Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem | ForEach-Object -MemberName Caption
 (Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).version


#-------------comment-------------#
#-----finding windows version-----#

$version= (Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).version
$length= $version.Length
$index= $version.IndexOf(".")
[int]$windows= $version.Remove($index,$length-2)  
$windows
#-----------end------------------#
#-----------comment-----------------#

Answer 4

Get-ComputerInfo | select WindowsProductName, WindowsVersion, OsHardwareAbstractionLayer

returns

WindowsProductName    WindowsVersion OsHardwareAbstractionLayer
------------------    -------------- --------------------------
Windows 10 Enterprise 1709           10.0.16299.371 

Answer 5

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 

Answer 6

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)