diff --git a/Code/Mantid/Framework/PythonInterface/mantid/kernel/environment.py b/Code/Mantid/Framework/PythonInterface/mantid/kernel/environment.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..ca5f87c3c420a36b3687b27471f6f2568c338240
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Code/Mantid/Framework/PythonInterface/mantid/kernel/environment.py
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+"""
+   Defines a set functions for interrogating the current enviroment.
+   
+   The standard platform module doesn't have simple things like is_windows(), 
+   is_linux(). The set of functions defined here should make it clearer what is going
+   on when they are used.
+"""
+import platform as _platform
+import sys as _sys
+
+def is_windows():
+    """
+       Returns True if the current platform is Windows (regardless of version/32- or 64-bit etc)
+    """
+    return _sys.platform == "win32"
+
+def is_mac():
+    """
+        Returns True if the current platform is Mac (regardless of version/32- or 64-bit etc)
+    """
+    return _sys.platform == "darwin"
+    
+def is_linux():
+    """
+        Returns True if the current platform is OS X (regardless of version/32- or 64-bit etc)
+        Variant on is_apple 
+    """
+    return _sys.platform.startswith("linux")
+    
+def is_32bit():
+    """
+        Returns True if the current platform is 32-bit
+    """
+    if is_mac():
+        # See Python documentation on platform module for why this is different
+        return _sys.maxsize == 2**31 - 1 # Max size of integer
+    else:
+        bits = _platform.architecture()[0]
+        return bits == '32bit'
+        
+def is_64bit():
+    """
+        Returns True if the current platform is 64-bit
+    """
+    if is_mac():
+        # See Python documentation on platform module for why this is different
+        return _sys.maxsize > 2**32
+    else:
+        bits = _platform.architecture()[0]
+        return bits == '64bit'
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