Will 32 bit programs run on 64 bit os

[Noddy needs Help]

I have bought a new computer with a 64bit processor & i am having all the software with me which are able to run in 32bit version... Will 32bit applications work on 64bit OS...?????

[MrChris-]

Because X86_64 processors are designed on the x86bit technology, but still it able to support programs of 32 bit programs without any hardware support. you need a power pc or sparc environment to run the 32 bit programs on a 64 bit platform. In Linux, everything what needs to do is to install necessary software for the operation of the libraries of 32 bits of software. Luckily there are availabe online on multiple sites.

[Solomon]

The above solution is correct. If the structure of the hardware is based on x86-64 & is able to run x64 Windows XP or anyother 64bit version OS then it is compatible with 32bit application. If your architecture is based on Itanium (IA64), then it will not run 32-bit applications or Operating Systems.

[Calvin K]

If require further information on it or require more solution have a look at the following thread....!

64bit vista can run 32bit program?


Application Installation

Lack of support for 16-bit DOS, Windows, or OS/2 applications on 64-bit Windows presents a significant barrier to application installation programs, because they often use a 16-bit stub to check the machine type, then launch a 32-bit install engine to actually perform the installation.

To work around this problem, 64-bit Windows recognizes specific 16-bit installer programs and substitutes a ported 32-bit version. The list of substitutions is stored in the registry under the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NtVdm64. There is built-in support for several installer engines, including InstallShield 5.x installers.

Note that the 64-bit Windows Installer can seamlessly install 32-bit MSI-based applications on 64-bit Windows.

[Lillebror]

Running 32-bit Applications on 64-bit Windows (IIS 6.0)

Windows Server 2003, Service Pack 1 enables IIS 6.0 to run 32-bit Web applications on 64-bit Windows using the Windows-32-on-Windows-64 (WOW64) compatibility layer. IIS 6.0 using WOW64 is intended to run 32-bit personal productivity applications needed by software developers and administrators, including 32-bit Internet Information Services (IIS) Web applications.

On 64-bit Windows, 32-bit processes cannot load 64-bit DLLs, and 64-bit processes cannot load 32-bit DLLs. If you plan to run 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows, you must configure IIS to create 32-bit worker processes. Once you have configured IIS to create 32-bit worker processes, you can run the following types of IIS applications on 64-bit Windows:

• Internet Server API (ISAPI) extensions
• ISAPI filters
• Active Server Page (ASP) applications (specifically, scripts calling COM objects where the COM object can be 32-bit or 64-bit)
• ASP.NET applications

IIS can, by default, launch Common Gateway Interface (CGI) applications on 64-bit Windows, because CGI applications run in a separate process.