â„–18301788[Quote]
originally there was just system, since windows was entirely 16-bit, then when we got 32-bit components we got system32, makes sense so far.
but then we were on 32-bit windows for a long time, unlike 16-bit windows which was relatively short-lived (technically it was around for 10 years but nobody used windows before 3.x really, which was only a few years before windows 95, the first 32-bit windows)
so we had way more 32-bit software than 16-bit by the time 64-bit was put on the table. lots of software assumed libraries went in system32, because they did. also it's usually quite trivial to compile 32-bit software as 64-bit with little to no code changes, unlike 16-bit.
so to keep it as compatible as possible, "system32" became the 64-bit library folder, so programs can keep using the same name, and "sysWOW64" became the 32-bit library folder, which stands for system Windows-On-Windows64, that is the name of the system that can run 32-bit windows programs on 64-bit windows, which internally presents that folder to 32-bit programs as "system32" as well, so actually both kinds of programs think they're using "system32".
why didn't they just make 64-bit programs think they're using system32 and direct them to system64?
iunno
â„–18301793[Quote]
Sncanvke