Windows 11 Product Name in registry

Nageswara Rao Y 26 Reputation points
2021-09-17T04:56:44.917+00:00

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion there are some things you could try to use to distinguish between Windows 10 and 11 but it seems that the version registry keys looks same as Windows 10 in Beta build of Windows 11 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.176).

The registry keys such as "ProductName", "CurrentMajorVersionNumber", "CurrentMinorVersion" under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion, shows as Windows 10. Please let us know if this will be changed soon? Do we expect these values on Windows 11 future builds or official builds?

Windows 11
Windows 11
A Microsoft operating system designed for productivity, creativity, and ease of use.
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  1. Mathew Burazin 11 Reputation points
    2021-10-06T05:48:23.59+00:00

    I can confirm as of today upgrading from Windows 11 using release code from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 CMD still reports the following;

    [Version 10.0.2200.194]

    137985-image.png

    Should it not read [Version 11.0.2200.194] and will this be addressed anytime soon?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  2. Mathew Burazin 11 Reputation points
    2021-10-12T05:14:24.16+00:00

    I also have a post in the feedback tool with as of yet no responses titled

    "Windows 11 Product Name in registry"

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  3. Nageswara Rao Y 26 Reputation points
    2021-10-13T03:17:02.907+00:00

    I was working with Microsoft Developer Support on this issue and wanted to share the information and solution that was concluded.

    Some registry values under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion will be updated when upgrading to Windows 11; others will remain as they were on Windows 10 (or earlier). The major and minor version will remain 10.0 on Windows 11. Microsoft recommendation is that applications should use the relevant APIs to retrieve such information from the system (WMI, GetVersionEx, etc) rather than querying the registry

    Also there were requests have already been submitted to change these registry key values and rejected by the Windows team. Updating the registry value to “Windows 11” can cause compatibility issues with existing applications that rely upon the registry value containing specific strings.

    Hence we tried the following and fixed in our code to detect Windows 11. Sample snippets.

    • WMI (PowerShell):

    PS C:\> Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem | Format-List -Property Caption
    Caption : Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise

    • WMI C#: string osName= null;
      var wmi = new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from Win32_OperatingSystem");
      foreach (ManagementObject obj in wmi.Get())
      {
      osName = obj["Caption"] as string;
      break;
      }
      if(osName!=null)
      return osName;
    1 person found this answer helpful.
  4. Reza-Ameri 16,826 Reputation points
    2021-09-17T16:49:15.78+00:00

    As you may know Windows 11 still under the testing and evaluation and these issues are expected to be solved when Windows 11 is available to the public and you will get different version number for Windows 11 and Windows 10.
    However, I advise you to report this issue using the Feedback Hub app.

  5. Kapil Arya 7,596 Reputation points MVP
    2021-09-18T11:48:34.337+00:00

    Windows 11 is still under testing, so you can expect a change in those values over the time.