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A friend of mine has a french win xp pro. your way says to
him WP

platform.release() returns "" to him
he has used antispam and such "tools" so he must have
accidentaly removed the place where release() seems to look.

So release() doesn't do for windows what you do. I also
noticed that On a windows exploer help --> about will give
Microsoft Windows
5.1 (more info)

it won't try the magic that release() [that fail]

simon's code still works there as charm. so if release()
returns "" I try to do that other code. I would like to see
that included though [or a better code for release() to
detect the correct stuff]
along with the more linux distros and the usage of lsb_release
Comments?