How to detect if my application is running in a virtual machine?

Question

How can I detect (.NET or Win32) if my application is running in a virtual machine?

Answer 1

This is what I use:

using (var searcher = new System.Management.ManagementObjectSearcher("Select * from Win32_ComputerSystem")) {   using (var items = searcher.Get())   {     foreach (var item in items)     {       string manufacturer = item["Manufacturer"].ToString().ToLower();       if ((manufacturer == "microsoft corporation" && item["Model"].ToString().ToUpperInvariant().Contains("VIRTUAL"))           || manufacturer.Contains("vmware")           || item["Model"].ToString() == "VirtualBox")       {         return true;       }     }   } } return false; 

Edit 2014-12-02: Updated code so that it no longer detects a Microsoft Surface Pro as a VM. Thanks to Erik Funkenbusch for pointing this out.

Edit 2017-06-29: Updated code so that it also checks the value of the HypervisorPresent property.

Edit 2018-02-05: removed check for the HypervisorPresent property since it's incorrect. This property could return true if running on the host O/S on a hyper-V server.