HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProductId not found running 32bit app on 64bit Windows

registrywow64

As title really. Looking in regedit the key-value exists, but the Wow6432 key (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion) doesn't have this key. This means a 32-bit app doesn't work on my 64-bit Windows version… which seems wrong, shouldn't the 32-bit app run without modifications? Or is this one case 32-bit apps have to be tweaked to work on 64bit Windows?

Best Answer

Applications really shouldn't access this registry value directly. The best way to get this value is to use WMI to get the SerialNumber property of the Win32_OperatingSystem class. This works fine from a 32-bit application running on Win64.

An alternative would be to use the KEY_WOW64_64KEY flag when opening the registry key (does not work on Windows 2000.)

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