Determine Windows version via BootCD?

[smoke070]

Hi, is there a way to determine what version of Windows is on a computer via Hiren's (etc)? I'm still pretty new with tech repair but when someone's operating system is constantly resetting or unusable its hard to determine which OS (Windows 7 Home, Windows 7 Professional.. etc) needs to be put back on.

I know obviously to check the sticker if there is one but i've had a few where there was none and I had to phone the customer and ask what the OS is, which I feel shouldn't be necessary.

 

[FoolishTech]

Technically if there is no sticker - there is no legit OS and they should have to purchase one.

Now to answer your question, the easy way is to use my own D7, though the last free version doesn't do this.

Also, product key viewers with offline capabilities can do it, like Nirsoft's Produkey I believe, and that's free.

Finally, you can load up the software registry hive (open regedit, select HKLM in the left pane, then select the file menu > load hive, and navigate to the offline Windows installation's windows\system32\config directory and select the 'system' file), next give it a name, say 'temphive' - finally in regedit you'll navigate to

HKLM\temphive\software\microsoft\windows nt\currentversion

and look for the productname value in the right pane. don't forget to unload the registry hive before closing regedit and restarting, risking potential corruption in the hive though this is rare, it could happen.