lantfred has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Is there a way of telling which version of MSWIN32 is being used for a perl script?

The reason I ask is that I provide a default editor as part of my GUI (it can be changed via the option menu) and I have found that notepad is under a different direcory on Vista to W2K or XP. I can check to see if the file is in a number of places and return a message box if it is not where I think it should be....but was wondering if there was a quicker solution

I have had to do different things depending on whether the OS is linux or windows...I expect that...but not between variations of windows. I thought using $^0 would be enough but apparently not

I am using Perl 5.8 (because it comes with Tk)...just for info

p.s. As an habitual vi user, I keep hitting the escape button when I finish editing and lose everything :-(

p.p.s. Question is too general to provide example code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Which MS Windows?
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Sep 25, 2010 at 23:48 UTC
    Is there a way of telling which version of MSWIN32 is being used for a perl script?

    See Win32::GetOSVersion() &| Win32::GetOSName(). It comes with AS Perl's. Not sure about other Win32 perl variants.

    I have found that notepad is under a different direcory on Vista to W2K or XP. I can check to see if the file is in a number of places

    Wherever it is located, it will be in the (standard) path, so why not just let the shell find it?

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      Not sure about other Win32 perl variants

      Yes, it's part of all Windows perls.

      Cheers,
      Rob
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Re: Which MS Windows?
by GrandFather (Saint) on Sep 25, 2010 at 23:49 UTC

    How are you using notepad? Simplistically `notepad`; is all you need.

    True laziness is hard work
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      Thanks for the advice...I will check in the Win package...it is a problem related to Vista (and possibly W 7)

      Incidentally, "notepad" on its own does not work on Vista but it does under W2K and XP...hence the question.

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        Incidentally, "notepad" on its own does not work on Vista

        It works for me under Vista?

        The executable is located (via the path): 

        C:\test>which notepad.exe
C:\Windows\system32\notepad.exe

        [download]

        Which is the same place as it was in XP.

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