A quick tip: Check with VB.NET if operating system is Windows Vista

One day I fixed some old VB.NET application that works fine in Windows XP and Windows 2000. The problem was, it didn't work as expected with Windows Vista.

I located the spot which handled Windows registry in a way that did not work in Vista and I was quickly able to write a Vista-compatible version. Since it was not possible to have two versions of the application and I did not have time to re-write that part of the code to be compatible with all Windows versions, I decided to include both code snippets in the same version and just check operating system.

Checking operating system version with VB.NET is an easy job and I wrote a little wrapper for my Windows Vista check:

''' <summary>
''' Returns true if the OS version is any Vista version
''' </summary>
''' <returns>True if Vista OS</returns>
''' <remarks></remarks>
Public Function IsVista() As Boolean
  '
  If Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major = 6 Then
    Return True
  Else
    Return False
  End If

End Function

In the application I use it in the following way:

If IsVista() Then
  ' Vista specific code
Else
  ' Code for older Windows versions
End If

That saved me a lot of time and testing.