Yes it is exactly what you think.

Challenge

Create a program that returns a truthy value when run on Microsoft Windows (for simplicity we'll stick with Windows 7, 8.1 and 10) and a falsey value when run on any other operating system (OSX, FreeBSD, Linux).

Rules

  • Code that fails to run/compile on a platform doesn't count as a falsey value.

Winning criteria

I'm labelling this as , so lowest score wins, but I'm also very interested in seeing creative solutions to this problem.

share|improve this question
6  
Can the programs output by exit code? (normally allowed) – FlipTack Jan 8 at 12:33
9  
Can you give a definite list of which operating systems this needs to work on? – FlipTack Jan 8 at 14:46
2  
What should the result be under Windows RT? – Adám 2 days ago
1  
2  
You may want to specify a few specific non-Windows systems that must be supported. There's some debates in comments about things like DOS and OS2. – jpmc26 2 days ago

36 Answers 36

MATLAB, 4 bytes

ispc

From the documentation:

tf = ispc returns logical 1 (true) if the version of MATLAB® software is for the Microsoft® Windows® platform. Otherwise, it returns logical 0 (false).

There are also the functions ismac and isunix. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out what those functions do. Mego kindly asked for diagrams explaining ismac and isunix so I've tried to illustrate it here:

enter image description here

It was not asked for a diagram of ispc but I can reveal that the behaviour is pretty similar, except substitute OSX and Unix with Windows.


Second approach:

If someone is not satisfied with this answer, I'll provide a second approach with getenv using 19 bytes that should be bullet proof, unless there's another operating system starting with W:

getenv('OS')(1)==87

getenv 'name' searches the underlying operating system environment list for text of the form name=value, where name is the input character vector. If found, MATLAB® returns the character vector value. If the specified name cannot be found, an empty matrix is returned.

share|improve this answer
13  
@z0rberg's It does, though. ispc is truthy iff the Matlab installation is for MS Windows. Though it could be run on WINE and still be truthy - I'd consider that "running on MS Windows", since WINE is a Windows compatibility layer. The same thing goes for WSL in Windows 10 - you're actually running Linux (in/with Windows), so it should be false. – Mego Jan 8 at 14:58
2  
@z0rberg's Because you cannot install the Windows version on anything but Windows (WINE counts as Windows here). It is a Windows installer, and installs Windows executables. The only way ispc will be true is if it was installed on a Windows platform - you couldn't even run the installer otherwise. – Mego 2 days ago
4  
@z0rberg's But this makes no sense. As I said, most of the answers here will detect wine as being Windows. Wine "emulates" backslashes. Wine "emulates" a C drive and a Windows directory. Wine reproduces ALL these things. Running ANY of these answers under Wine, or at least the vast majority of them, will say that they're running under Windows. – Muzer 2 days ago
13  
@z0rberg's how about instead of trolling this particular answer, you ask the OP for clarification on the rules? As other people have noted, WINE is specifically designed to appear to the hosted programs to BE Windows for all practical purposes, so it's not very surprising or problematic that many answers (not just this one) would recognize WINE as Windows. – Blackhawk yesterday
4  
Funniest part is that PC != Windows. PC is the hardware, Windows is one of the possible operating systems that can run on it, so ispc is a misnomer. – Shahbaz yesterday

Python 2.7.10, 24 bytes

import os
0/('['>os.sep)

Thanks to FlipTack for 3 bytes

This program takes advantage of the fact that Windows is the only OS to use \ as a path separator. Normally this is frustrating and bad, but for once it is actually an advantage. On Windows, '['>os.sep is false, and thus 0/0 is computed, causing a ZeroDivisionError and exiting with a non-zero exit code. On non-Windows platforms, '['>os.sep is true, making the expression 0/1, which does nothing, and the program exits with exit code 0.

share|improve this answer
    
DOS also uses a backslash as the path separator and it has at least one Python 2 implementation. – isanae Jan 8 at 15:50
3  
@isanae I've edited the title to specify Python 2.7 - the only Python 2 implementation on DOS is an archaic, buggy 2.4.2 – Mego Jan 8 at 15:56
    
OS/2 also uses a backslash and has a Python 2.7 implementation ;) – isanae Jan 8 at 16:02
4  
@isanae There, I specified 2.7.10. Good luck finding a port of that. – Mego 2 days ago
2  
apparently it only needs to give correct results on 3 recent windows versions and presumably similarly recent versios of the three other systems listed, OS2 and DOS don't matter, – Jasen 2 days ago

Vim, 2 bytes

<C-a>1

On Windows, <C-a> (ctrl+a) is mapped by default to Select All. If you type a 1 in select mode in Windows, it replaces the selection with what you typed (1) leaving a 1 in the buffer.

On other operating systems, <C-a> by default is mapped to Increment number. Because there's no number to increment, it's a no-op, and then the 1 increases the count but in terms of the buffer is a no-op.

1 is truthy in Vim, and an empty string is falsy

share|improve this answer
    
Looks like 3 keystrokes. Ctrl+a+1 – Pavel 2 days ago
7  
I think per this meta post meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/8995/… Vim answers are generally scored without the modifiers (especially given that the first answer on the post uses <ctrl+a> as an example for 1 byte) – nmjcman101 2 days ago
3  
@Pavel it's Ctrl + a, 1. If it were Ctrl + a + 1 it'd be counted as 1 keystroke. – Captain Man yesterday
1  
Beautiful, I love this answer! – DJMcMayhem yesterday

x86 Assembly, 3 bytes (Inspired by Runemoro's answer)

40 CD 80

Or

inc eax
int 0x80

Description

First of all, we'll set eax to 1 (the system call number for exit(int val) for Linux, FreeBSD and OSX). Then, we'll call the interrupt gate 0x80 which is the system call gate for Linux, FreeBSD and OSX. That would cause the program to exit with status of ebx which is 0 (false).

On Windows int 0x80 is an invalid gate (It uses 2e as a syscall gate) and would crash the program, causing it to end with a positive exit code (true).

References and further reading

share|improve this answer
3  
That's brilliant! – z0rberg's yesterday
    
Why does the crash cases a truthy value? Is it because EAX (typically the return value) is 1? Also, is EAX guaranteed to be 0 at program start? Or do you need xor eax, eax in there? – Cole Johnson yesterday
1  
@ColeJohnson: OS-detected crashes (on the operating systems typically used with x86) never leave an exit code of 0, because that's reserved for successful termination. (Normally the exit code is some wonky value that the OS reserves specifically for this circumstance.) However, I'm not sure it makes sense to count 0 as falsey and 1 as truthy in program exit codes, given that the normal convention is the exact opposite (with 0 being the only truthy vaue, e.g. the standard UNIX/Linux/POSIX program false exits with code 1 whilst true exits with code 0). – ais523 yesterday
    
@ais523 The relevant answer on the Interpretation of Truthy/Falsey post on meta also states that 0 is truthy and nonzero is falsy. – user2428118 7 hours ago

C, 44 43 38 36 bytes

Thanks to @Downgoat for a byte! crossed out 44 is still regular 44
Thanks to @Neil for two bytes!

f(){return
#ifdef WIN32
!
#endif
0;}
share|improve this answer
    
Originally I was going to suggest that you can save a bunch of bytes by moving the 0 out of the ifdef and changing the 1 to !, but I think _WIN32+0 works even better still. – Neil Jan 8 at 13:52
    
If c99 is OK you can change f to main and stick return 1; inside the ifdef and remove the else, since main without return in c99 must return 0. – gurka Jan 8 at 13:56
6  
That's a compiler directive. If it's compiled on a Windows system and run on a Linux system, for example, it will still return 1. – Micheal Johnson Jan 8 at 14:44
    
Do you need _ in WIN32? I never added it on my code – Downgoat Jan 8 at 14:44
3  
@MichealJohnson no. I can compile it on linux (using mingw32gcc msvc) snd get code that returns true when run on windows. I don't know of any windows-hosted linux compiler. if you want to argue emulation layers like "wine" all the other answers probably suffer the same problem – Jasen 2 days ago

PHP, 22 bytes

`<?=PATH_SEPARATOR>":";`  

prints 1 if the path separator is semicolon (colon or empty for all other OSs except for DOS and OS/2), else nothing.

also 22 bytes, but not that safe:

<?=strpos(__FILE__,92);

prints a positive integer if the file path contains a backslash; else nothing.
A safe alternative with 27 bytes: <?=DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR>"/"; prints 1 or nothing.

Strange: <?=__FILE__[1]==":"; (20 bytes) should be, not safe either, but ok. But although __FILE__ pretends to be a string (I tried var_dump and gettype), indexing it throws an error (at least in online testers).
I´ll try it on my server tomorrow. Will someone test it on Windows?

27 bytes: <?=stripos(PHP_OS,win)===0;
tests if predefined PHP_OS constant starts with win (case insensitive; Windows,WIN32,WINNT, but not CYGWIN or Darwin); prints 1 for Windows, else nothing.

17/18 bytes:

<?=strlen("
")-1;

prints 1 if it was stored with Windows linebreak (also on DOS, OS/2 and Atari TOS - although I doubt that anyone ever compiled PHP for TOS), else 0.

You could also check the constant PHP_EOL.

more options:

PHP_SHLIB_SUFFIX is dll on Windows, but not necessarily only there.
php_uname() returns info on the operating system and more; starts with Windows for Windows.
$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] will contain Windows when called in a browser on Windows.
<?=defined(PHP_WINDOWS_VERSION_BUILD); (38 bytes) works in PHP>=5.3

conclusion

The only failsafe way to tell if it´s really Windows, not anything looking like it, seems to be a check on the OS name. For PHP: php_os() may be disabled for security reasons; but PHP_OS will probably always contain the desired info.

share|improve this answer
4  
File names on *nix can contain backslashes, so this isn't really foolproof. The rules don't say it has to be foolproof, though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ – Jordan Jan 8 at 15:10
    
@Jordan: You´re right. I added that info to the description. Thanks. – Titus Jan 8 at 15:57
4  
An alternative: <?=class_exists(COM);. The class COM is only available under Windows, as far as I know. That should save you one byte. – Ismael Miguel 2 days ago
    
@IsmaelMiguel That's enough of a different answer for you to post it as such. (However, it may not be worth it to do so; this answer is very well written.) – wizzwizz4 yesterday
1  
@wizzwizz4 It isn't worth it. The answer would be pushed to oblivion. That's why I simply left the comment, instead of writting my own answer. – Ismael Miguel yesterday

Mathematica, 28 bytes

$OperatingSystem=="Windows"&
share|improve this answer
    
What's the point in making it a function? You could remove the ampersand saving one byte, and the code would just directly evaluate whether it's executed is on a Windows-ish system. – Ruslan 2 days ago
    
@Ruslan All answers must be either full programs that print the result or callable functions. If this is declared a Mathematica notebook answer, then you might get away with calling it a full program, but if I invoke the thing from the command-line without the &, it won't print anything (and it's then also not a callable function, but merely a snippet/expression). – Martin Ender 2 days ago
    
@MartinEnder Really no output? I get Out[1]= False output from this: ~/opt/Mathematica/11.0/Executables/math <<< '$OperatingSystem=="Windows"' – Ruslan 2 days ago
    
@Ruslan I believe that also starts a notebook environment (just a command-line based one). What I mean by running a program from the command-line is using script mode. – Martin Ender 2 days ago

Java 8, 33 bytes

Special thanks to Olivier Grégoire for suggesting separatorChar, and Kritixi Lithos for -1 byte!

This is a lambda expression which returns a boolean. This can be assigned to Supplier<Boolean> f = ...; and called with f.get().

()->java.io.File.separatorChar>90

Try it online! - the server isn't windows, so this prints false. However, in my windows machine, the same code prints true.

What this code does is get the System's file seperator, and check whether its codepoint is larger than the character [. This true for Windows, as it uses \ as the seperator - but every other OS uses /, which has a lower code in the ASCII table.

share|improve this answer
    
Won't this break on other OSes which start with W? – Downgoat Jan 8 at 14:44
    
()->java.io.File.separatorChar=='\\' is only 36 bytes. – Olivier Grégoire Jan 8 at 15:11
1  
@OlivierGrégoire nice one - and I can golf it to 34 using ()->java.io.File.separatorChar>'['! – FlipTack Jan 8 at 15:16
2  
@Titus WebOS, Whonix. Probably even more. – Olivier Grégoire Jan 8 at 16:54
3  
@Titus Wait, what about WAITS? – SeeOneRhino 2 days ago

J, 7 bytes

6=9!:12

This is a verb (similar to a function) that uses the builtin foreign conjunction 9!:12 to acquire the system type where 5 is Unix and 6 is Windows32.

share|improve this answer

Befunge-98, 7 bytes

6y2%!.@

Try it online!

This works by querying the system path separator, which is \ on Windows and / on other operating systems.

6y            System information query: #6 returns the path separator.
  2%          Test the low bit - this will be 1 for '/' and 0 for '\'.
    !         Not the value, so it becomes 0 for '/' and 1 for '\'.   
     .@       Output the result and exit.
share|improve this answer

R, 15 bytes

.Platform$O>"v"

Thanks to plannapus for the suggestion to use partial matching for list element extraction.

.Platform is a list with some details of the platform under which R was built. There is an element OS.type (the only element with name starting with "O") which is character string, giving the Operating System (family) of the computer. One of "unix" or "windows".

So "unix" is less then "v", but "windows" is greater then "v". Other valid 15 bytes answers are

.Platform$O>"V"
.Platform$O>"w"
.Platform$O>"W"

R is being developed for the Unix-like, Windows and Mac families of operating systems. Other OS families are not supported.

share|improve this answer
1  
there are platforms other than unix that aren't windows you know... – muddyfish 2 days ago
1  
@muddyfish: .Platform[[1]] is defined as either "unix" or "windows" in R documentation. github.com/wch/r-source/blob/… – liori 2 days ago
    
Sorry, that's ok then. The answer should probably be modified to include this fact to stop that being asked again – muddyfish 2 days ago
2  
You can use partial matching of list elements for a shorter code (as OS.type is the only element starting with O): .Platform$O!="unix" – plannapus 2 days ago

julia, 10 bytes

is_windows

A function that returns true for windows

share|improve this answer

Batch, 50 bytes

@if %OS%==Windows_NT if not exist Z:\bin\sh echo 1

Edit: Fixed to ignore DOS instead of claiming that it's Windows.

The only other way I know of running Batch outside of Windows is to use WINE which by default will map Z: to /. Therefore if Z:\bin\sh exists, chances are that it's /bin/sh, so not MS Windows.

I don't know what WINE sets %OS% to, but if it's not Windows_NT then I could save 23 bytes.

share|improve this answer
1  
Another way is DOS, which is not Windows. – Ruslan 2 days ago
    
Not only does this fail under DOS, but also, on a computer where Z: is mapped, and happens to contain such a path. – Adám 2 days ago
    
This doesn't work if cygwin is install to the root of drive Z: – DavidPostill 2 days ago
3  
@Adám Sure and if you compile the C answer with -DWIN32=1 then it fails too. Your point? – Neil 2 days ago
1  
yes, wine sets OS=Windows_NT – Jasen 2 days ago

x86 machine code, 9 bytes

40 39 04 24 75 02 CD 80 C3

Compiled from:

inc eax        ; set eax to 1
cmp [esp], eax ; check if [esp] == 1 (linux)
jne windows    ; jump over "int 0x80" if on windows
int 0x80       ; exit with exit code 0 (ebx)
windows:
ret            ; exit with exit code 1 (eax)
share|improve this answer
3  
pure binary (COM) won't run on Windows or Linux so not sure if this is valid – Igor Skochinsky 2 days ago
    
@IgorSkochinsky There must be an interpreter for assembly. – Shmuel H. 2 days ago
    
You can make the code even shorter by leaving only inc eax and int 0x80, I think it should fail on windows and terminate the process. – Shmuel H. 2 days ago
    
@ShmuelH. We aren't allowed to do that: "Code that fails to run/compile on a platform doesn't count as a falsey value." – Runemoro 2 days ago
2  
@IgorSkochinsky There are programs that run raw binary too. See the link in my previous comment. – Shmuel H. 2 days ago

Perl, 11 bytes

print$^O=~MS

^O should be replaced by a literal Control-O.

Outputs 1 on windows, nothing on another OS.

Note that I'm not using say as it adds a trailing newline, which is truthy in Perl.

-2 bytes thanks to primo. (and fixed potential issues)
-1 bytes thanks to ais523.

share|improve this answer
    
AFAIR this won't work in Cygwin Perl. – Igor Skochinsky 2 days ago
    
This won't work in mingw Perl either. Perl treats those both as distinct operating systems from Windows, though (as they generally obey UNIX rather than Windows conventions), and it's not clear whether they should count for the purpose of the question. In other news, you can save a byte here by using a literal control-O character rather than ^O. – ais523 yesterday
    
@ais523 I edited that, thanks. As for Cygwin and Mingw, I'll delete the post if they should be considered as Windows, but as you say, it would make more sense to consider them like separate OS (or at least, like not-Windows OS). – Dada yesterday
    
Regex delimiters shouldn't be necessary $^O=~W, although, I would probably match against MS. Alternatively, you could also match $^X=~':'. – primo 5 hours ago
    
@primo right, thanks. I don't know any other OS with a W in it so I assumed checking for a W for fine.. any reasons why you suggest MS instead? – Dada 5 hours ago

C#, 61 48 bytes

()=>(int)System.Environment.OSVersion.Platform<4

Saved 13 bytes thanks to TheLethalCoder

Or a full program at 83 bytes:

class P{static int Main(){return(int)System.Environment.OSVersion.Platform<4?1:0;}}

Various Windows variants use enum values 0 to 3 in the Microsoft .NET implementation. 4 is Unix, 5 is Xbox [360] (which I won't consider "Windows"), 6 is MacOSX. Mono uses the same values, adding 128 for Unix/Linux in earlier versions.

Therefore, anything < 4 is Windows, and everything else is not Windows.

share|improve this answer
2  
Not sure if I'm missing something, but why are you casting the value to an int? – auhmaan yesterday
    
@auhmaan CS0019 Operator '<' cannot be applied to operands of type 'PlatformID' and 'int' -- basically, C#'s typing rules says I can't compare a PlatformID and int directly, and there's no implicit cast from PlatformID to int. But there is an explicit cast from all enums to their values, which I take advantage of here... – Bob 19 hours ago
1  
@MustafaAKTAŞ Also, I have to point out that this is targeting C#/.NET Framework/.NET Core. On Xbox One it's only possible to run UWP apps, which use a different API not including System.Environment.OSVersion at all. If you're going to take issue with that, then you should also delete every other non-UWP answer. It also turns out that you can't (currently) run UWP apps on non-Windows platforms, so you can go delete all those too. Which leaves you with 0 answers, and an unanswerable question. – Bob 5 hours ago
1  
You can compile to an Action<bool> in the first example for 48 bytes (I haven't tested it but believe it will work) _=>(int)System.Environment.OSVersion.Platform<4; It might need to be ()=>... for 49 bytes though – TheLethalCoder 4 hours ago
1  
Compiling to anonymous functions such as Funcs and Actions are used all the time here. I believe it's in the golfing tips page and I use them almost all the time. Also anonymous functions are used in other languages a lot so I think it is safe to use them here – TheLethalCoder 3 hours ago

QBasic, 31 bytes

?INSTR(ENVIRON$("COMSPEC"),"W")

Prints non-zero under Windows, 0 under everything else.

COMSPEC is an environment variable unique to Microsoft OSs. It points to the command interpreter, typically command.com or cmd.exe. Under Windows, the command interpreter sits somewhere in the Windows directory; under MS-DOS, it sits in the DOS directory or on the root of the disk, and under any other OS, it doesn't exist.

By checking to see if the value of COMSPEC contains a "W", we can tell the difference between Windows and not-Windows.

share|improve this answer
    
COMSPEC isn't reserved to mean anything in particular under Linux (meaning it's under user control by default), so isn't it possible that the user's set it to a value that they're using for their own purposes (and happens to contain a W)? Admittedly, that's a bit of an edge case. – ais523 yesterday
    
@ais523: Also, the Windows directory doesn't have to contain a W. It's brittle in either case. – Joey yesterday

JavaScript, 42 30 26 25 bytes

console.log((
//Begin
_=>navigator.oscpu[0]>'V'
//End
)())

Tested with Firefox. (Chrome doesn't have the oscpu property.) Since lowercase letters have a higher character code than uppercase letters, this depends on the first letter of navigator.oscpu being uppercase and not being W, X, Y or Z on any platform that Firefox supports (other than Windows, of course). According to this post, that is the case.

Edits

  1. Saved 12 bytes thanks to Neil.
  2. Saved another four bytes
  3. Saved another byte thanks to Blender.
share|improve this answer
    
oscpu is probably the shortest navigator property that you can use. Also, testing a regexp will probably work out shorter, but I haven't measured it. – Neil Jan 8 at 13:54
    
You can remove !=-1 and add a ~ right after the fat arrow, saving 3 bytes. – L. Serné Jan 8 at 16:06
    
Do you have to create a function? Can't you just console.log the regex test? Also would navigator.oscpu[0]=='W' work or is there another OS that also starts with W. – Masterzagh 2 days ago
2  
Hmm, for some reason my Chrome doesn't have oscpu. – Muzer 2 days ago
1  
navigator.oscpu>'V' might work as well – Blender 14 hours ago

Node.js, 27 16 bytes

Thanks to @Patrick, who shaved 11 bytes off my solution using Node's REPL:

_=>path.sep!='/'

Original solution:

_=>require('path').sep!='/'
share|improve this answer
    
If you change this to Node.js REPL, you can save 16 bytes by just using _=>path.sep!='/' – Patrick Roberts yesterday
    
I'm new to codegolf. Am I allowed to do that? – GilZ yesterday
    
Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have suggested it. REPL means read, execute, print loop, the program that runs when you enter node on the console. From there, all the system node modules are available without the need to require() them. – Patrick Roberts yesterday

Perl 6,  19  18 bytes

put $*DISTRO.is-win
put ?($*CWD~~/\\/)

Both output True␤ or False␤ depending on the system it is run on.

share|improve this answer
    
the second one relies on the non windows values of CWD not containing any `` - there's no guarantee of that, – Jasen 2 days ago

Dyalog APL, 21 bytes

'W'=⊃⊃⎕WG'APLVersion'

⎕WG'APLVersion' system function Windows Get property APL Version

pick the first element (Target Environment)

pick the first letter (Windows/Linux/AIX/Solaris)

'W'= W equal to that letter?

share|improve this answer

Excel VBA, 41 40 30 29 Bytes

Immediate windows function that returns some integer greater than 1 (truthy) if the workbooks own path contains a "\". Returns false on OSX as the workbook path may never contain "\".This will only ever be truthy on Windows based systems as Excel VBA is restricted to Windows and OSX.

?InStr(ThisWorkbook.Path,"\")

Previous Versions

?mid(thisworkbook.Path,3,1)="\" -30 Bytes, Restricted to local Files

?Application.PathSeparator="\" - 30 Bytes

?Left(Application.OperatingSystem,1)="W" -40 Bytes

Changes

-1 Thanks to Neil for using Left(...,1) over Mid(...,1,1)

-10 Thanks to ChrisH for pointing out @Mego's Path Separator Trick

-1 For Checking the WorkbookPath for "\" rather than using Application.Path Separator

share|improve this answer
1  
left saves you a byte. – Neil 2 days ago
    
Have you tried it on office365 online? Does that even support VBA? Just curious. – Chris H yesterday
    
@ChrisH To my knowledge office.com does not support online VBA scripting (though if anyone else knows better please do tell me, that would make my life significantly easier); However, with O365 you have the rights to download a copy of Office 2016 (or whatever is current) to your desktop, and that does support VBA scripting. – Taylor Scott yesterday
    
I've so far manage to avoid it; given your comment that looks set to continue (the only windows machines I use have a desktop copy of office, personal machines are all linux) – Chris H yesterday
1  
@Mego's path separator trick (?Application.PathSeparator)="\" would be 32 as it's a single char) – Chris H yesterday

tcl, 38 bytes

 expr [lsearch $tcl_platform windows]>0
share|improve this answer

PHP 17 Bytes

The following will output 1 if windows and nothing if anything else. Ignoring notices of string convertion.

<?=PHP_OS==WINNT;

Try online Online tests for linux because the sandbox is linux for PoC.

share|improve this answer
    
Sure that is enough? Asking because Possible Values For: PHP_OS. – manatwork 2 days ago
1  
'<?=PHP_OS[0]==W;` is both 1 byte shorter and catches all the other windows values in the question linked by manatwork. >V might work too. – user59178 2 days ago

Java 8, 49 bytes

()->System.getenv().get("OS").contains("Windows")

Longer than the other Java answer, but takes a different approach.

This lambda fits in a Supplier<Boolean> and can be tested with the following program:

public class DetectMSWindows {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println(f(() -> System.getenv().get("OS").contains("Windows")));
  }

  private static boolean f(java.util.function.Supplier<Boolean> s) {
    return s.get();
  }

}
share|improve this answer
    
It's very, very similar to the initial answer that you link (before the edits). – Olivier Grégoire 2 days ago
    
Why not just .contains("W")? – Cyoce 17 hours ago
    
@Cyoce actually, the variable OS appears to be Windows-specific. – Snowman 14 hours ago

8th, 11 bytes

 
os 1- not .
 

Prints true on Windows, false on Linux and macOS. Other platforms supported by 8th are Android, iOS and Raspberry Pi, but I am not able to test on them.

Ungolfed version (with comments)

 
G:os  \ Return a number n indicating the operating system 
      \ 0 for Linux
      \ 1 for Windows 
      \ 2 for macOS
      \ 3 for Android 
      \ 4 for iOS 
      \ 5 for Raspberry Pi
n:1-  \ Subtract 1
G:not \ If Windows --> true, otherwise --> false
.     \ Print result
 
share|improve this answer

FPC, 61 chars

begin{$ifdef win32}write('f');{$else}write('nf');{$endif}end;
share|improve this answer
    
you can shave some bytes by using only one write begin write({$ifdef win32}1{$else}0{$endif});end. – hdrz 2 days ago
    
Or to work on win64 as well: begin write({$ifdef windows}1{$else}0{$endif})end. – hdrz 2 days ago
    
@hdrz, yes, you right, thanks ;) – monobogdan 2 days ago
    
@hdrz, sure that would be correct? 1 and 0 are not truthy/falsey in Pascal. I would go with begin write(1={$ifdef windows}1{$endif}+0)end. – manatwork 2 days ago
    
@manatwork, FPC and Delphi supports various types in writeln. And boolean is can be only 0 or 1 in pascal – monobogdan 2 days ago

Haskell, 39 31 bytes

import System.Info
f=os!!0=='m'

I check for the first letter output of "m", which should be "mingw" for windows. As far as I could tell, there is no other OS which starts with M. The information comes from https://github.com/ghc/ghc/blob/master/compiler/utils/Platform.hs

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1  
On my system (Windows 10 64-bit, GHC 8.0.1 64-bit), os gives "mingw32". – Mego Jan 8 at 15:44
    
@Mego you are right, corrected for that – Dylan Meeus 2 days ago

tcl, 51

puts [string match windows $tcl_platform(platform)]

I don't have a Windows machine online, but on http://rextester.com/live/OVTY1488 replace windows by unix to see it output 1 instead of 0.

2nd attempt:

tcl, 40

puts [string match W* $tcl_platform(os)]

assuming Windows is the only system the name begins on a W.

3rd attempt:

tcl, 26

puts [info exists env(OS)]

assuming Windows is the only system the OS environment variable is defined.

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IBM/Lotus Notes Formula Language, 22 bytes

@Left(@Platform;1)="W"

or

@Begins(@Platform;"W")

Computed field formula on a Notes form. @Platform returns 1 of:

AIX/64
Linux/64
Macintosh
OS/400®
UNIX
Windows/32
Windows/64

So the formula returns 1 (@True) if the platform starts with "W" and 0 (@False) if not.

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