Updated September 2023; see History
xcall MIAMEX, MX_OSVER, osname {,osver, osrel, asplatform, ate'osname, ate'osver, ate'osrel, ate'platform}
MX_OSVER (MIAMEX 106) retrieves information about the current host operating system or ATE, including its name, version, and release, plus the platform for which this copy of A-Shell was compiled. This can be useful in applications which wish to take advantage of features that are only available under certain platforms.
This function has both a subroutine and a print tab implementation.
Parameters
osname (String, 10+) [out]
returns the name of the host operating system. For Windows, the possibilities are: "Win95", "Win98", "WinME", "WinNT 3.51", "WinNT 4.0", "Win2000", and "WinXP". If the version information is not recognized, it will be reported as "Win X.Y" where X is the major version number and Y is the minor version number. For 64-bit versions, "/64" will be appended to the end. For Unix, OSNAME will return the same as the "uname -s" command, e.g. "Linux," "SCO_SV," "AIX."
osver (String, 16+) [out]
returns the "version" of the operating system. For Windows, this might contain "OSR2" for Win95, "SE" for Win98, or "Service Pack 6" for NT. For Unix, it will be what "uname -v" returns, e.g. a date string for Linux, or "5.0.5" (SC0), or "4" (AIX 4.3).
osrel (String, 16+) [out]
returns the "release" of the operating system. For Windows, this will be the build number. For Unix, this will be what "uname -r" returns, e.g. "2.4.2-2" (Linux), "3.2" (SCO), "3" (AIX 4.3).
asplatform (String, 16+) [out]
returns the generic platform that this copy of A-Shell was compiled for. This is the same string that would be returned in the SYSDOS field in GETJTBxs. Examples are: "AIX", "SCO Unix", "Linux", "Windows/32".
The parameters ate'osname, ate'osver, ate'osrel, and ate'platform are equivalent to the osname, osver, osrel and asplatform parameters, except they return the information about the ATE client, if applicable. Otherwise they return null strings.
The sample program MIAMEX.BP in EXLIB:[908,30] illustrates these fields.
Windows Names and Versions
The return values of the function are not as easy to to compare to a particular threshold as they might be—but then again, neither are the underlying OS versions themselves. Certain "recognized" versions of Windows will report a "friendly name" (e.g. "Win7") while unrecognized versions will just show "Win x.y" where x.y is the underlying major.minor version reported by Windows itself. Here is a table of those values:
Microsoft Public Name |
Internal Version |
OSname* |
|---|---|---|
Windows 10 |
10.0 |
Win10** |
Windows 8.1 |
6.3 |
** |
Windows Server 2012 R2 |
6.3 |
WinSvr2012R2 |
Windows 8 |
6.2 |
Win 6.2 |
Windows Server 2012 |
6.2 |
Win 6.2 |
Windows 7 |
6.1 |
Win7 |
Windows Server 2008 R2 |
6.1 |
WinSvr2008R2 |
Windows Server 2008 |
6.0 |
WinSvr2008 |
Windows Vista |
6.0 |
WinVista |
Windows Server 2003 R2 |
5.2 |
Win 5.2 |
Windows Server 2003 |
5.2 |
Win 5.2 |
Windows XP 64-Bit Edition |
5.2 |
Win 5.2 |
Windows XP |
5.1 |
Win 5.1 |
Windows 2000 |
5.0 |
Win 5.0 |
Windows ME |
4.90 |
Win 4.90 |
Windows 98 |
4.10 |
Win 4.10 |
Windows 95 |
4.0 |
Win 4.0 |
Windows NT |
4.0 |
Win 4.0 |
Windows NT |
3.? |
Win 3.51 |
* /64 is appended for 64-bit OS versions
** Prior to A-Shell 6.2.1420.5, Windows 8.1 and above would report itself as Windows 8.
See Also
History
2023 September, A-Shell 6.5.1742: MX_OSVER updated to report more accurate Windows information. Note however, that Windows 11 continues to identify itself as Windows 10, apparently due to some Microsoft rationale. You can identify it by a release or build # >= 22000.
2020 July, A-Shell 6.5.1687: The osname parameter will now be returned with "/64" appended to the end when running a 64 bit Windows OS.
