How to detect Windows 64-bit platform with .NET?

Question

In a .NET 2.0 C# application I use the following code to detect the operating system platform:

string os_platform = System.Environment.OSVersion.Platform.ToString();

This returns "Win32NT". The problem is that it returns "Win32NT" even when running on Windows Vista 64-bit.

Is there any other method to know the correct platform (32 or 64 bit)?

Note that it should also detect 64 bit when run as a 32 bit application on Windows 64 bit.

Answer 1

.NET 4 has two new properties in the Environment class, Is64BitProcess and Is64BitOperatingSystem. Interestingly, if you use Reflector you can see they are implemented differently in the 32-bit & 64-bit versions of mscorlib. The 32-bit version returns false for Is64BitProcess and calls IsWow64Process via P/Invoke for Is64BitOperatingSystem. The 64-bit version just returns true for both.

Answer 2

Try this:

Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem

Environment.Is64BitProcess

Answer 3

Include the following code into a class in your project:

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Winapi)]
    [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
    private static extern bool IsWow64Process([In] IntPtr hProcess, [Out] out bool wow64Process);

    public static int GetBit()
    {
        int MethodResult = "";
        try
        {
            int Architecture = 32;

            if ((Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major == 5 && Environment.OSVersion.Version.Minor >= 1) || Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major >= 6)
            {
                using (Process p = Process.GetCurrentProcess())
                {
                    bool Is64Bit;

                    if (IsWow64Process(p.Handle, out Is64Bit))
                    {
                        if (Is64Bit)
                        {
                            Architecture = 64;

                        }

                    }

                }

            }

            MethodResult = Architecture;

        }
        catch //(Exception ex)
        {
            //ex.HandleException();
        }
        return MethodResult;
    }

Use it like so:

string Architecture = "This is a " + GetBit() + "bit machine";

Answer 4

This is just an implementation of what's suggested above by Bruno Lopez, but works on Win2k + all WinXP service packs. Just figured I'd post it so other people didn't have roll it by hand. (would have posted as a comment, but I'm a new user!)

[DllImport("kernel32", SetLastError = true, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Winapi)]
public extern static IntPtr LoadLibrary(string libraryName);

[DllImport("kernel32", SetLastError = true, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Winapi)]
public extern static IntPtr GetProcAddress(IntPtr hwnd, string procedureName);

private delegate bool IsWow64ProcessDelegate([In] IntPtr handle, [Out] out bool isWow64Process);

public static bool IsOS64Bit()
{
    if (IntPtr.Size == 8 || (IntPtr.Size == 4 && Is32BitProcessOn64BitProcessor()))
    {
        return true;
    }
    else
    {
        return false;
    }
}

private static IsWow64ProcessDelegate GetIsWow64ProcessDelegate()
{
  IntPtr handle = LoadLibrary("kernel32");

  if ( handle != IntPtr.Zero)
  {
    IntPtr fnPtr = GetProcAddress(handle, "IsWow64Process");

    if (fnPtr != IntPtr.Zero)
    {
      return (IsWow64ProcessDelegate)Marshal.GetDelegateForFunctionPointer((IntPtr)fnPtr, typeof(IsWow64ProcessDelegate));
    }
  }

  return null;
}

private static bool Is32BitProcessOn64BitProcessor()
{
  IsWow64ProcessDelegate fnDelegate = GetIsWow64ProcessDelegate();

  if (fnDelegate == null)
  {
    return false;
  }

  bool isWow64;
  bool retVal = fnDelegate.Invoke(Process.GetCurrentProcess().Handle, out isWow64);

  if (retVal == false)
  {
    return false;
  }

  return isWow64;
}

Answer 5

I use a version of the following:

    public static bool Is64BitSystem()
    {
        if (Directory.Exists(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("Program Files (x86)"))) return true;
        else return false;
    }

Answer 6

I used this check with success on many operating systems:

private bool Is64BitSystem
{
   get
   {
      return Directory.Exists(Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(@"%windir%\SysWOW64"));
   }
}

This folder is always named "SysWOW64", no matter of the language of the operating system. This works for .NET Framework 1.1 or above.