Windows 11 Product Name in registry

Nageswara Rao Y 26

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?

Andrew S. Baker 6 Reputation points

2021-11-29T16:31:32.86+00:00

This is by design, primarily for compatibility issues, so that a ton of software doesn't stop installing because it thinks that Windows 11 is an unsupported operating system.

This is not a new issue/concern. You either have to use the Windows Manifest to understand the version info, or if you choose to use the registry, you will have to track the build number to have some assurance of what edition of Windows is running.

I don't expect this situation to change for future releases of Windows 11.

(After all, it still lists the legacy "CurrentVersion" as v6.3)
Yaakov @ WTG 6 Reputation points

2021-11-29T22:41:26.38+00:00

If by "Windows Manifest" you mean the application manifest GUIDs, as far as I am aware there is no new compatibility GUID for Windows 11, so that's a non-starter.
MikeRoz 6 Reputation points

2023-05-31T16:40:00.3033333+00:00

This is just another lamest thing MS makes!

If a s/w needs Windows 10 to function, it needs to know it runs on Win10 and not on Win 8 or 11. If you, as an end user, accept a risk running such a s/w item on Win 11, then there is a compatibility approach. Remember app shortcuts where you could choose between Win 95, 98, XP, etc.?

I see the following Win10 keys unchanged (read: wasted) in Win11:
CurrentMajorVersionNumber REG_DWORD 0xa
CurrentVersion REG_SZ 6.3
ProductName REG_SZ Windows 10 Enterprise

MS makes this easy to use method obsolete, but with the same approach other methods will become unreliable and obsolete, just creating even more mess.

16 answers

Docs 15,141 Reputation points

2022-02-03T14:01:33.763+00:00

At times one or more of these commands may be useful:

wmic os get caption
wmic path cim_datafile where name='c:\windows\explorer.exe' Get Version | find "10"
wmic os get buildnumber
systeminfo | findstr /b /C:"OS name"
systeminfo | findstr /b /C:"OS version"
slmgr.vbs /dli

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

current build
current build number
displayversion
editionid
productname

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