get name of operation system

[ilya]

I use the method System.getProperty("os.name") to get the name of
operation system. For the most computers it works fine. But on some
computers it is installed windows 7, but this method shows that the
operation system is windows vista. What can be the reason?

 

[Mike Schilling]

I use the method System.getProperty("os.name") to get the name of
operation system. For the most computers it works fine. But on some
computers it is installed windows 7, but this method shows that the
operation system is windows vista. What can be the reason?

Most likely that that version of Java doesn't know about Windows 7, so it
interprets any version number higher than XP's as Vista.

 

[ilya]

Ok. thank you. I found out that it is necessary to update the JDK.

 

[Lew]

Could it be that the JVM simply asks the OS what it is, and that is
what Windows tells it?

Most likely that that version of Java doesn't know about Windows 7, so it
interprets any version number higher than XP's as Vista.

Are you claiming that the JVM hard-codes its knowledge of OSes rather
than querying the OS itself?

 

[Mike Schilling]

Could it be that the JVM simply asks the OS what it is, and that is
what Windows tells it?



Are you claiming that the JVM hard-codes its knowledge of OSes rather
than querying the OS itself?

I'm hypothesizing that there's a native Windows call that returns a version
number (in fact, I think I've read that), and the JVM translates that number
into a name .

 

[Roedy Green]

I'm hypothesizing that there's a native Windows call that returns a version
number (in fact, I think I've read that), and the JVM translates that number
into a name .

In Windows 7 you can find the OS name by looking in the registry
under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\
ProductName="Windows 7 Home Premium"


Java prunes that back to: os.name = Windows 7

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Could it be that the JVM simply asks the OS what it is, and that is
what Windows tells it?

That can not be the explanation since Vista is version 6.0 and 7 is
version 6.1!

Are you claiming that the JVM hard-codes its knowledge of OSes rather
than querying the OS itself?

It has to query the OS.

But it can still do the version number to name translation based
on some hardcoded logic.

Arne