How to make Msvc++ express 2010 application compatible to 64bit machines?

Question

I was browsing the web and found out that my application would probably not work on (win)64bit machines. And that this is due to the fact that MSVC uses my default 32bit runtime and sets the application to work only on 32bit machines.

How can i set my simple application to run on x86 machines? thus making 64bit machines use WoW64 when executing my app?

I'm using MS visual studio 2010 express (kinda short at the moment).

Answer 1

32-bit applications will work on Win64 OS's.

There are some special things you might need to do if your application needs to access the 'true' system32 directory or certain registry keys. However, the vast majority of 32-bit applications don't need to deal with that (some that might include file managers or registry editors). In fact, the redirection was specifically put in place by Microsoft so that the redirections would help the application compatibility.

However, if your application requires a special device driver - that would have to be built for a 64-bit platform (again, this is pretty rare).

You should test your application on a 64-bit platform, but the expectation is that in general it should just work.