Detecting Windows 10 version

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The most straight-forward way to retrieve the true OS version is to call RtlGetVersion. It is what GetVersionEx and VerifyVersionInfo call, but doesn’t employ the compatibility shims.

You can either use the DDK (by #including <ntddk.h> and linking against NtosKrnl.lib from kernel mode, or ntdll.lib from user mode), or use runtime dynamic linking as in the following snippet:

typedef LONG NTSTATUS, *PNTSTATUS;
#define STATUS_SUCCESS (0x00000000)

typedef NTSTATUS (WINAPI* RtlGetVersionPtr)(PRTL_OSVERSIONINFOW);

RTL_OSVERSIONINFOW GetRealOSVersion() {
    HMODULE hMod = ::GetModuleHandleW(L"ntdll.dll");
    if (hMod) {
        RtlGetVersionPtr fxPtr = (RtlGetVersionPtr)::GetProcAddress(hMod, "RtlGetVersion");
        if (fxPtr != nullptr) {
            RTL_OSVERSIONINFOW rovi = { 0 };
            rovi.dwOSVersionInfoSize = sizeof(rovi);
            if ( STATUS_SUCCESS == fxPtr(&rovi) ) {
                return rovi;
            }
        }
    }
    RTL_OSVERSIONINFOW rovi = { 0 };
    return rovi;
}

In case you need additional information you can pass an RTL_OSVERSIONINFOEXW structure in place of the RTL_OSVERSIONINFOW structure (properly assigning the dwOSVersionInfoSize member).

This returns the expected result on Windows 10, even when there is no manifest attached.

As an aside, it is commonly accepted as a better solution to provide different implementations based on available features rather than OS versions.

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