How to check if OS is Vista in Python?

Question

How, in the simplest possible way, distinguish between Windows XP and Windows Vista, using Python and pywin32 or wxPython?

Essentially, I need a function that called will return True iff current OS is Vista:

>>> isWindowsVista() True 

Answer 1

Python has the lovely 'platform' module to help you out.

>>> import platform >>> platform.win32_ver() ('XP', '5.1.2600', 'SP2', 'Multiprocessor Free') >>> platform.system() 'Windows' >>> platform.version() '5.1.2600' >>> platform.release() 'XP' 

NOTE: As mentioned in the comments proper values may not be returned when using older versions of python.

Answer 2

The solution used in Twisted, which doesn't need pywin32:

def isVista():     if getattr(sys, "getwindowsversion", None) is not None:         return sys.getwindowsversion()[0] == 6     else:         return False 

Note that it will also match Windows Server 2008.