SysWOW64 (vs System32) behavior
I'm trying to sort out precisely what behavior I can expect from Windows if my application writes a value to "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32". The documentation I've read strongly suggests that a value written here will also automatically appear in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32". Assuming that's correct, does it also adjust names and values for the corresponding SysWOW64 vs System32 folder? I ask primarily because writing directly to Wow6432Node is strongly discouraged ... but if the OS doesn't automatically make the appropriate changes for me then I'm going to have to ignore that advice in order to make sure that everything gets configured correctly.
October 1st, 2011 12:36pm

TxITGuy wrote: I'm trying to sort out precisely what behavior I can expect from Windows if my application writes a value to "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32". The documentation I've read strongly suggests that a value written here will also automatically appear in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Drivers32". Assuming that's correct, does it also adjust names and values for the corresponding SysWOW64 vs System32 folder?  I ask primarily because writing directly to Wow6432Node is strongly discouraged ... but if the OS doesn't automatically make the appropriate changes for me then I'm going to have to ignore that advice in order to make sure that everything gets configured correctly. Depends on your software. If software is running in 32-bit mode on a 64 bit platform of WIN7 all references to HKLM\SOFTWARE\xxx will be redirected to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\xxx . That helps old applications not needing to differentiate between 64-bit and 32-bit platforms. If software is running in 64-bit mode it only writes to HKLM\SOFTWARE\xxx . If your software runs in both modes you need to set parameters in both locations. And they are not automatically synced. HTH Wolfgang
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October 1st, 2011 2:56pm

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