如何确定可移动驱动器上安装的Windows版本

Question

I am unable to find out how to determine the version of Windows installed on a removable/slave drive. In my search I discovered the DriveInfo class, which has some neat stuff, but doesn't show me if the drive has XP, or Vista or higher (I need to know this since they have different directory structures and I want to automate the process of backing up their data).

Will I have to access the drive's registry somehow? I want to avoid that if possible because it's complicated, and at the end of the day I just want to do something like (crappy psuedocode):

if drive.has(XP) then

else

end if

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

From Is there a way to find out my Windows 7-version without booting? , not a programmer's way but a power user's .

Go to

C:\\Windows\\System32

read the "license.rtf" file

Since you have access to all the files on the removable disk...right? now it is about using VB.NET to parse the RTF file.

Answer 2

An alternative way to determine the operating system version is documented on the MSDN page "Getting the System Version" :

To obtain the full version number for the operating system, call the GetFileVersionInfo function on one of the system DLLs, such as Kernel32.dll, then call VerQueryValue to obtain the \\StringFileInfo\\\\ProductVersion subblock of the file version information.

Luckily, that will work for offline instances just as well as for the running instance. The only real complication is if you need to cope with the possibility that the system folder has been given a non-standard name.

Answer 3

You could do this using regedit.

Import the software hive from the registry of the drive in question using regedit. It's located in %SYSTEMROOT%\\system32\\config. It doesn't matter where you import it to (let's suppose HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) or the name you pick. Regedit is normally in C:\\Windows. It can be launched from the command prompt if necessary.

Then check the version in the key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE//Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion) under the hive you imported.

More here: https://blog.skullsecurity.org/2010/find-the-windows-version-offline