How to get the "friendly" OS Version Name?

I am looking for an elegant way to get the OS version like: "Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1" or "Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition" etc.

Is there an elegant way of doing that?

I am also interested in the processor architecture (like x86 or x64).

Solution 1:

You can use WMI to get the product name ("Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise "):

using System.Management;
var name = (from x in new ManagementObjectSearcher("SELECT Caption FROM Win32_OperatingSystem").Get().Cast<ManagementObject>()
                      select x.GetPropertyValue("Caption")).FirstOrDefault();
return name != null ? name.ToString() : "Unknown";

Solution 2:

You should really try to avoid WMI for local use. It is very convenient but you pay dearly for it in terms of performance. This is quick and simple:

    public string HKLM_GetString(string path, string key)
    {
        try
        {
            RegistryKey rk = Registry.LocalMachine.OpenSubKey(path);
            if (rk == null) return "";
            return (string)rk.GetValue(key);
        }
        catch { return ""; }
    }

    public string FriendlyName()
    {
        string ProductName = HKLM_GetString(@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion", "ProductName");
        string CSDVersion = HKLM_GetString(@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion", "CSDVersion");
        if (ProductName != "")
        {
            return (ProductName.StartsWith("Microsoft") ? "" : "Microsoft ") + ProductName +
                        (CSDVersion != "" ? " " + CSDVersion : "");
        }
        return "";
    }

Solution 3:

Why not use Environment.OSVersion? It will also tell you what operating this is - Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, etc. To find out if you are running in 64bit or 32bit, use IntPtr.Size - this will return 4 bytes for 32bit and 8 bytes for 64bit.

Solution 4:

Try:

new ComputerInfo().OSVersion;

Output:

Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise

Note: Add reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic.Devices;