recognising other OS'es present on a a system

[Ken Ray]

On 9/11/06 3:14 AM, "Viktoras Didziulis" <viktoras at ekoinf.net> wrote:

> is there a universal recipe to check from within one OS whether there are
> other OSes present on machine and what "species" do they belong (e.g. Linux,
> Windows, MacOSX or Unix) ?

Not AFAIK, Viktoras... the reason is that it varies per platform. For
example, on the current crop of Apple computers, the machine itself can run
MacOS X, Windows (natively through Boot Camp), Windows/Linux (virtualized
through Parallels or Crossover), or OS 7/8/9 (emulated through SheepShaver).
On Windows, you can run Mac OS 7/8/9? (emulated through Basilisk II), etc.

So since there are many different third party emulators/virtualizers for
different platforms, and since those programs generally work with virtual
hard disks in a file, it is nearly impossible to determine what OS has been
loaded on the hard disk in the file.


Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software
Web site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com