Here's my problem: Among the users I support, some have Windows 8.0 Pro, some Windows 8.1 Pro, some Windows 8.0 Enterprise, and some Windows 8.1 Enterprise.<o:p></o:p>

Every now and then, one of them messes their machine up to the point where I need to perform Boot Repair from the install media (DVD or USB). The problem, which I discovered the hard way, is that...<o:p></o:p>

If you try to boot the Windows 8.0 Pro media and repair anything other than a Windows 8.0 Pro installation, it will try for about 15 minutes and then tell you something like "This installation of Windows cannot be repaired". It doesn't say that you're trying to repair with the wrong version. It just leads you to believe that it is beyond repair... when, actually, if you use the right version of the install media, it works fine. Same thing goes for the other three flavors of Windows we use here.<o:p></o:p>

The problem is: sometimes our install media will just have "Windows 8" (without Pro or Enterprise) written on it. Or our users will just say "I had some kind of Windows 8".<o:p></o:p>

So, what I'm  looking for is a way to tell (without actually booting the drive or media) what version of Windows a hard-drive or install media has. Now, this could be as simple as "There will be a text file in C:\Windows\System32\blahblahblah which will say 'Windows 8.1 Enterprise 64-bit English'" or it may be more complicated like "Byte 0xA3E28 of NTKERN.SYS will be 0xEF for Windows 8.0 Pro, 0x4B for Windows 8.0 Enterprise...".<o:p></o:p>

Well you could look into active directory or any inventory system you have.

But unless you have that info somewhere no way to know unless you at least boot to get access to the drives.

It`s like me asking you this: Any way to get the name of someone without him telling me. 

So what you could do is make yourself a disk that as the 2 operating system on it.

You can use WMI, systeminfo or the ver command to know the OS version but this as to be booted. The same with the file if you are looking for a file you would need to boot the HD.

For the file go to C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe and look at the file version 6.2 = windows 8 6.3 = windows 8.1 or do C:\Windows\System32\license.rtf

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire 15 hours 45 minutes ago

It`s like me asking you this: Any way to get the name of someone without him telling me.

Except it's not like that. Grab a drive that has Linux on it and mount it on another system and you can look at /etc/issue, /etc/redhat_release, /etc/debian_version, or a few other files, and you'll have the info you're looking for.

I'll try the license.rtf file, though.

still the time it take you to open the laptop/desktop or boot using a live ISO/USB linux to get the info. All of this would be the same time as booting with a custom Winpe to get the info.

if this is something you facing often might be good to take the time and make the perfect media to fix this issue for good:) You could go with a triple boot ISO that boot winpe so you can validate the version and after that boot on the right windows version.

For the license file if you look at the header it will tell you right away what version it's running.

Well you could look into active directory or any inventory system you have.

But unless you have that info somewhere no way to know unless you at least boot to get access to the drives.

It`s like me asking you this: Any way to get the name of someone without him telling me. 

So what you could do is make yourself a disk that as the 2 operating system on it.

You can use WMI, systeminfo or the ver command to know the OS version but this as to be booted. The same with the file if you are looking for a file you would need to boot the HD.

For the file go to C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe and look at the file version 6.2 = windows 8 6.3 = windows 8.1 or do C:\Windows\System32\license.rtf

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire Monday, August 31, 2015 3:39 PM

Well you could look into active directory or any inventory system you have.

But unless you have that info somewhere no way to know unless you at least boot to get access to the drives.

It`s like me asking you this: Any way to get the name of someone without him telling me. 

So what you could do is make yourself a disk that as the 2 operating system on it.

You can use WMI, systeminfo or the ver command to know the OS version but this as to be booted. The same with the file if you are looking for a file you would need to boot the HD.

For the file go to C:\Windows\System32\ntoskrnl.exe and look at the file version 6.2 = windows 8 6.3 = windows 8.1 or do C:\Windows\System32\license.rtf

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire Monday, August 31, 2015 3:39 PM