How to Get Windows Version from Command Prompt or from Powershell

The ver command shows something like this:

> ver

Microsoft Windows [Versión 10.0.17134.228]

But in PowerShell (or Git Bash) you have to call it through the cmd command:

> cmd /c ver

The following commands are is going to help you with that. If you need more information, just type in systeminfo:

systeminfo | findstr /B /C:"OS Name" /C:"OS Version"

wmic os get Caption,CSDVersion /value

I found it somewhere, PowerShell:

(Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion").ReleaseId

To add to @Bonifacio 's answer:

REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | findstr ReleaseId

Would be even better, because it returns only the ReleaseId value, which you could then pipe to a file. Especially useful if you have several hosts to deal with.

REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | findstr ReleaseId > any_path\%COMPUTERNAME%_OS_Version.txt

With system information you can only get the build with that value and go to Google to get the respective version.

However, one simple way is by searching the registry on the command line:

REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | findstr REG_SZ

The reg query way suggested all output a little garbage.

REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | findstr ReleaseId
Output:
ReleaseId    REG_SZ    2009

Using a for loop with tokens will output clean information.

for /f "tokens=3" %i in ('REG QUERY "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" ^| findstr ReleaseId') do echo %i
Output:
2009

The tokens=3 refers to the third word from the original output.

You will need to double the % if running inside a bat file.

You can set the output as a variable by replacing echo %i with set build=%i

Also remember to escape ^ any special characters.

Lastly look at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion for the string that has the required value. You may need to adjust the token count.

For what it is worth, I combined a few answers into this powershell function. (I tested this using pwsh 7.2.1).

<#
.SYNOPSIS
    Gets information about the version of windows this session is running on.

.OUTPUTS
    A hashtable with various key/value pairs containing version information.

.EXAMPLE
    PS> $winver = Get-Winver
    PS> $winver
    
    Name                           Value
    ----                           -----
    DisplayVersion                 21H2
    ProductName                    Windows 10 Enterprise
    CurrentBuildNumber             19044
    KeyName                        HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
    Version                        10.0.19044.0
    VersionString                  Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19044.0
    OsVersion                      Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19044.0

    PS> $winver.Version    

    Major  Minor  Build  Revision
    -----  -----  -----  --------
    10     0      19044  0

#>
function Get-Winver {
    $keyName = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion"
    $versionKey = (Get-Item $keyName)
    $displayVersion = $versionKey.GetValue("DisplayVersion")
    $productName = $versionKey.GetValue("ProductName")
    $currentBuildNumber = $versionKey.GetValue("CurrentBuildNumber")

    $osver = [System.Environment]::OSVersion

    $winver = [Ordered]@{
        "DisplayVersion"     = $displayVersion
        "ProductName"        = $productName
        "CurrentBuildNumber" = $currentBuildNumber
        "KeyName"            = $keyName
        "Version"            = $osver.Version
        "VersionString"      = $osver.VersionString
        "OsVersion"          = $osver
    }

    return $winver
}