Detect exact OS version from browser

Question

I was wondering if there is a way I can detect the exact Operating System version from my browser using PHP/JS/ASP?

I know I can detect the type of OS (Windows XP,Windows Vista,OS X,etc) but I need to detect the exact version: Vista Business, Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Pro, etc...

Answer 1

Short answer: You can't.

Long answer:

All you have is the information in the HTTP User-Agent header, which usually contains the OS name and version.

Usually, browsers running on Mac OS and Linux send enough information to identify the exact OS. For example, here's my User-Agent header:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009030423 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.7

You can see that I'm running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

And here's what Firefox and Safari 4 Beta report on my MacBook Pro:

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021906 Firefox/3.0.7

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_6; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Safari/528.16

Windows browsers, on the other hand, usually only report the OS version and not the specific package (Pro, Business, etc.):

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:x.x.x) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/x.x

Answer 2

After some googling I found this code and it seems to be working ok,(doesn't detect Unix though)

<?php 
$OSList = array
(
// Match user agent string with operating systems
'Windows 3.11' => 'Win16',
'Windows 95' => '(Windows 95)|(Win95)|(Windows_95)',
'Windows 98' => '(Windows 98)|(Win98)',
'Windows 2000' => '(Windows NT 5.0)|(Windows 2000)',
'Windows XP' => '(Windows NT 5.1)|(Windows XP)',
'Windows Server 2003' => '(Windows NT 5.2)',
'Windows Vista' => '(Windows NT 6.0)',
'Windows 7' => '(Windows NT 7.0)',
'Windows NT 4.0' => '(Windows NT 4.0)|(WinNT4.0)|(WinNT)|(Windows NT)',
'Windows ME' => 'Windows ME',
'Open BSD' => 'OpenBSD',
'Sun OS' => 'SunOS',
'Linux' => '(Linux)|(X11)',
'Mac OS' => '(Mac_PowerPC)|(Macintosh)',
'QNX' => 'QNX',
'BeOS' => 'BeOS',
'OS/2' => 'OS/2',
'Search Bot'=>'(nuhk)|(Googlebot)|(Yammybot)|(Openbot)|(Slurp)|(MSNBot)|(Ask Jeeves/Teoma)|(ia_archiver)'
);
// Loop through the array of user agents and matching operating systems
foreach($OSList as $CurrOS=>$Match)
{
// Find a match
if (eregi($Match, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))
{
// We found the correct match
break;
}
}
// You are using ...
echo "You are using ".$CurrOS;
?>

Answer 3

// this will help you

$uagent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "<br/>";

function os_info($uagent)
{
    // the order of this array is important
    global $uagent;
    $oses   = array(
        'Win311' => 'Win16',
        'Win95' => '(Windows 95)|(Win95)|(Windows_95)',
        'WinME' => '(Windows 98)|(Win 9x 4.90)|(Windows ME)',
        'Win98' => '(Windows 98)|(Win98)',
        'Win2000' => '(Windows NT 5.0)|(Windows 2000)',
        'WinXP' => '(Windows NT 5.1)|(Windows XP)',
        'WinServer2003' => '(Windows NT 5.2)',
        'WinVista' => '(Windows NT 6.0)',
        'Windows 7' => '(Windows NT 6.1)',
        'Windows 8' => '(Windows NT 6.2)',
        'Windows 8.1' => '(Windows NT 6.3)',
        'Windows 10' => '(Windows NT 10.0)',
        'WinNT' => '(Windows NT 4.0)|(WinNT4.0)|(WinNT)|(Windows NT)',
        'OpenBSD' => 'OpenBSD',
        'SunOS' => 'SunOS',
        'Ubuntu' => 'Ubuntu',
        'Android' => 'Android',
        'Linux' => '(Linux)|(X11)',
        'iPhone' => 'iPhone',
        'iPad' => 'iPad',
        'MacOS' => '(Mac_PowerPC)|(Macintosh)',
        'QNX' => 'QNX',
        'BeOS' => 'BeOS',
        'OS2' => 'OS/2',
        'SearchBot' => '(nuhk)|(Googlebot)|(Yammybot)|(Openbot)|(Slurp)|(MSNBot)|(Ask Jeeves/Teoma)|(ia_archiver)'
    );
    $uagent = strtolower($uagent ? $uagent : $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
    foreach ($oses as $os => $pattern)
        if (preg_match('/' . $pattern . '/i', $uagent))
            return $os;
    return 'Unknown';
}
echo os_info($uagent);