Use Windows Powershell to determine the Windows Edition

There are many Powershell scripts to determine the operating system version, but determining is the edition is a bit harder. You might need this information for certain applications. The information about the version is encoded in the OperatingSystemSKU property of the Win32_OperatingSystem class of the WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)

Pro tip: this post relies on basic Windows PowerShell skills. I can highly recommend O’reilly’s PowerShell cookbook to improve your basic PowerShell skills.

The following table shows the currently available editions in this property:

Value  Meaning
-----  -------
    0  Undefined
    1  Ultimate Edition
    2  Home Basic Edition
    3  Home Premium Edition
    4  Enterprise Edition
    5  Home Basic N Edition
    6  Business Edition
    7  Standard Server Edition
    8  Datacenter Server Edition
    9  Small Business Server Edition
   10  Enterprise Server Edition
   11  Starter Edition
   12  Datacenter Server Core Edition
   13  Standard Server Core Edition
   14  Enterprise Server Core Edition
   15  Enterprise Server Edition for Itanium-Based Systems
   16  Business N Edition
   17  Web Server Edition
   18  Cluster Server Edition
   19  Home Server Edition
   20  Storage Express Server Edition
   21  Storage Standard Server Edition
   22  Storage Workgroup Server Edition
   23  Storage Enterprise Server Edition
   24  Server For Small Business Edition
   25  Small Business Server Premium Edition
   29  Web Server, Server Core
   39  Datacenter Edition without Hyper-V, Server Core
   40  Standard Edition without Hyper-V, Server Core
   41  Enterprise Edition without Hyper-V, Server Core
   42  Hyper-V Server

We can use this information in a hash table within PowerShell to determine the version.
The following code shows an example of this:


$editions = @{
 0 = 'Undefined'
 1 = 'Ultimate Edition'
 2 = 'Home Basic Edition'
 3 = 'Home Premium Edition'
 4 = 'Enterprise Edition'
 5 = 'Home Basic N Edition'
 6 = 'Business Edition'
 7 = 'Standard Server Edition'
 8 = 'Datacenter Server Edition'
 9 = 'Small Business Server Edition'
 10 = 'Enterprise Server Edition'
 11 = 'Starter Edition'
 12 = 'Datacenter Server Core Edition'
 13 = 'Standard Server Core Edition'
 14 = 'Enterprise Server Core Edition'
 15 = 'Enterprise Server Edition for Itanium-Based Systems'
 16 = 'Business N Edition'
 17 = 'Web Server Edition'
 18 = 'Cluster Server Edition'
 19 = 'Home Server Edition'
 20 = 'Storage Express Server Edition'
 21 = 'Storage Standard Server Edition'
 22 = 'Storage Workgroup Server Edition'
 23 = 'Storage Enterprise Server Edition'
 24 = 'Server For Small Business Edition'
 25 = 'Small Business Server Premium Edition'
 29 = 'Web Server, Server Core'
 39 = 'Datacenter Edition without Hyper-V, Server Core'
 40 = 'Standard Edition without Hyper-V, Server Core'
 41 = 'Enterprise Edition without Hyper-V, Server Core'
 42 = 'Hyper-V Server'
}

$sku = (Get-WmiObject Win32_OperatingSystem).OperatingSystemSKU

'Edition is {0}.' -f $editions[$sku]

This concludes our article about determining the Windows Edition using Windows Powershell.

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