how to detect OS architecture?

[Regan Heath]

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 21:27:13 -0000, Hugo Florentino <hugo at acdam.cu> wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 20:23:00 +0100, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> On 2013-12-16 17:46, Marco Leise wrote:
>>
>>> Hehe, I guess the whole purpose of the launcher is to run in
>>> 32-bit and detect at runtime if the 64-bit main executable can
>>> be run or the 32-bit version must be used.
>>
>> The only advantage of that is that only a 32bit launcher needs to be
>> distributed. Perhaps that's the whole idea.
>
> It is. :)

"Process Explorer" by sysinternals, now distributed by M$ does something  
similar.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

It is a 32 bit exe, which detects the OS bit width and if it's 64 bit  
extracts a 64 exe from within itself to run.  When you quit that 64 bit  
exe, it deletes the file it extracted from disk.  It's quite a neat  
solution.

R

-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/