Check 32 bit windows 64 bit windows

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Believe it or not, my installer is so old that it doesn’t have an option to detect the 64-bit version of Windows.

Is there a Windows DLL call or (even better) an environment variable that would give that information for Windows XP and Windows Vista?

One possible solution

I see that Wikipedia states that the 64-bit version of Windows XP and Windows Vista have a unique environment variable: %ProgramW6432%, so I’m guessing that’d be empty on 32-bit Windows.

This variable points to Program Files directory, which stores all the installed program of Windows and others. The default on English-language systems is C:\Program Files. In 64-bit editions of Windows (XP, 2003, Vista), there are also %ProgramFiles(x86)% which defaults to C:\Program Files (x86) and %ProgramW6432% which defaults to C:\Program Files. The %ProgramFiles% itself depends on whether the process requesting the environment variable is itself 32-bit or 64-bit (this is caused by Windows-on-Windows 64-bit redirection).

I used this within a login script to detect 64 bit Windows

if "%ProgramW6432%" == "%ProgramFiles%" goto is64flag

I don’t know on which Windows version it exists, but on Windows Vista and later this runs:

Function Is64Bit As Boolean
    Dim x64 As Boolean = System.Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem
    If x64 Then
       Return true
    Else
       Return false
    End If
End Function

I use this:

@echo off
if "%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%"=="AMD64" (
 echo 64 BIT
) else (
 echo 32 BIT
)

It works on Windows XP, tested it on Windows XP Professional Both 64 bit and 32 bit.

answered Jan 9, 2015 at 13:03

I know this is ancient but, here’s what I use to detect Win764

On Error Resume Next

Set objWSHShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

strWinVer = objWSHShell.RegRead("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\BuildLabEx")

If len(strWinVer) > 0 Then
    arrWinVer = Split(strWinVer,".")
    strWinVer = arrWinVer(2)
End If

Select Case strWinVer
Case "x86fre"
strWinVer = "Win7"
Case "amd64fre"
    strWinVer = "Win7 64-bit"
Case Else
    objWSHShell.Popup("OS Not Recognized")
    WScript.Quit
End Select

answered Jan 19, 2012 at 21:43

I tested the following batch file on Windows 7 x64/x86 and Windows XP x86 and it’s fine, but I haven’t tried Windows XP x64 yet, but this will probably work:

If Defined ProgramW6432 (Do x64 stuff or end if you are aiming for x86) else (Do x86 stuff or end if you are aiming for x64) 

Using Windows Powershell, if the following expression returns true, then it’s a 64 bit OS:

(([Array](Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_Processor | Select-Object AddressWidth))[0].AddressWidth -eq 64)

This was taken and modified from: http://depsharee.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-do-detect-operating-system.html (Method #3). I’ve tested this on Win7 64 bit (in both 32 and 64 bit PowerShell sessions), and XP 32 bit.

answered Jan 21, 2014 at 22:15

The best way is surely just to check whether there are two program files directories, ‘Program Files’and ‘Program Files (x86)’
The advantage of this method is you can do it when the o/s is not running, for instance if the machine has failed to start and you wish to reinstall the operating system

Interestingly, if I use

get-wmiobject -class Win32_Environment -filter "Name='PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE'"

I get AMD64 in both 32-bit and 64-bit ISE (on Win7 64-bit).

answered Jul 9, 2014 at 3:17

Another way created by eGerman that uses PE numbers of compiled executables (does not rely on registry records or environment variables):

@echo off &setlocal


call :getPETarget "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe"


if "%=ExitCode%" EQU "00008664" (
    echo x64
) else (
    if "%=ExitCode%" EQU "0000014C" (
        echo x32
    ) else (
        echo undefined
    )
)


goto :eof


:getPETarget FilePath
:: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: Errorlevel
::   0 Success
::   1 File Not Found
::   2 Wrong Magic Number
::   3 Out Of Scope
::   4 No PE File
:: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: =ExitCode
::   CPU identifier

setlocal DisableDelayedExpansion
set "File=%~1"
set Cmp="%temp%\%random%.%random%.1KB"
set Dmp="%temp%\%random%.%random%.dmp"

REM write 1024 times 'A' into a temporary file
if exist "%File%" (
  >%Cmp% (
    for /l %%i in (1 1 32) do <nul set /p "=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
  )
  setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
) else (endlocal &cmd /c exit 0 &exit /b 1)

REM generate a HEX dump of the executable file (first 1024 Bytes)
set "X=1"
>!Dmp! (
  for /f "skip=1 tokens=1,2 delims=: " %%i in ('fc /b "!File!" !Cmp!^|findstr /vbi "FC:"') do (
    set /a "Y=0x%%i"
    for /l %%k in (!X! 1 !Y!) do echo 41
    set /a "X=Y+2"
    echo %%j
  )
)
del !Cmp!

REM read certain values out of the HEX dump
set "err="
<!Dmp! (
  set /p "A="
  set /p "B="
  REM magic number has to be "MZ"
  if "!A!!B!" neq "4D5A" (set "err=2") else (
    REM skip next 58 bytes
    for /l %%i in (3 1 60) do set /p "="
    REM bytes 61-64 contain the offset to the PE header in little endian order
    set /p "C="
    set /p "D="
    set /p "E="
    set /p "F="
    REM check if the beginning of the PE header is part of the HEX dump
    if 0x!F!!E!!D!!C! lss 1 (set "err=3") else (
      if 0x!F!!E!!D!!C! gtr 1018 (set "err=3") else (
        REM skip the offset to the PE header
        for /l %%i in (65 1 0x!F!!E!!D!!C!) do set /p "="
        REM next 4 bytes have to contain the signature of the PE header
        set /p "G="
        set /p "H="
        set /p "I="
        set /p "J="
        REM next 2 bytes contain the CPU identifier in little endian order
        set /p "K="
        set /p "L="
      )
    )
  )
)
del !Dmp!
if defined err (endlocal &endlocal &cmd /c exit 0 &exit /b %err%)

REM was the signature ("PE\0\0") of the PE header found
if "%G%%H%%I%%J%"=="50450000" (
  REM calculate the decimal value of the CPU identifier
  set /a "CPUID=0x%L%%K%"
) else (endlocal &endlocal &cmd /c exit 0 &exit /b 4)
endlocal &endlocal &cmd /c exit %CPUID% &exit /b 0

answered Aug 20, 2014 at 9:20

Here is a simpler method for batch scripts

    @echo off

    goto %PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%

    :AMD64
    echo AMD64
    goto :EOF

    :x86 
    echo x86
    goto :EOF

answered Nov 20, 2014 at 13:58

Answer for Newer Versions of Windows

Today, I posted some code on another question and an explanation of how to do this with IsWow64Process2 for Windows 10 version 1511 or later and Windows Server 2016. Additionally, the code determines if the process is 32 or 64 bit and whether the process is running under the WOW64 emulator.

One of the main reasons I have posted the answer is because while there were several suggestions to use IsWow64Process2, no code that I saw showed how.

Please see the answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/59377888/1691559

answered Dec 23, 2019 at 0:16

answered Sep 12, 2021 at 9:04

Check the Registry for the existence of HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node
— If it’s there, the system is 64-bit
— 32-bit, otherwise.