{"id":3373,"date":"2005-02-17T20:47:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-17T20:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/heaths\/2005\/02\/17\/x86-and-ia64-and-x64-oh-my\/"},"modified":"2005-02-17T20:47:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-17T20:47:00","slug":"x86-and-ia64-and-x64-oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/x86-and-ia64-and-x64-oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"x86 and ia64 and x64, oh my!"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the .NET Framework 2.0 now supporting<\/a> 64-bit platforms, I have begun work on upgrading our patch build system to handle 64-bit patches. It’s been quite an adventure down the yellow-brick road of 64 bitness that I think is worth sharing.<\/p>\n

Why does the .NET Framework need to support 64-bit platforms, though? While most IL modules embedded in assemblies – which are still PE\/COFF executables<\/a> – are architecturally agnostic some are not, like CustomMarshalers.dll<\/em> or mscorelib.dll<\/em>. In these cases both 32- and 64-bit assemblies are required. Because 32-bit code will run under 64-bit Windows under Windows-on-Windows 64 (WOW64)<\/a> 32-bit processes still may need access to the 32-bit assemblies either in the GAC or in the Framework version directory (ex: %windir%Microsoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.<\/em>nnnn). For code running natively under 64-bit Windows, access to 64-bit assemblies is necessary. These files are installed side by side. If you have .NET 2.0 installed and look in %windir%assembly<\/em> you’ll see a new column in the shell view that tells you if the assembly is MSIL, x86, or AMD64 or IA64. Future versions should, by the way, should replace “AMD64” with “x64”.<\/p>\n

So what is difference between x86, AMD64, IA64, and x64? x86 is what most everyone is running now – 32-bit processes on 32-bit Windows. AMD64<\/a> is Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.’s answer to 64-bit computing that runs 32-bit code natively as well. This means that you can install 32-bit Windows on an AMD64 machine. These machines have already begun shipping with 32-bit Windows XP and a friend of mine in MN is already running one happily. IA64<\/a> – or Intel Itanium – processors run 64-bit natively and offer 32-bit emulation, but you cannot install 32-bit Windows on it. You need to run Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit Itanium-based Systems<\/a>. Intel has also introduced EM64T<\/a> – or Extended Memory 64 Technolocy – for Intel Xeon processors. This processor also supports running 32-bit processes natively like the AMD64.<\/p>\n

x64 is the term Microsoft uses to collectively refer to processors that run both 32- and 64-bit code natively without emulation – both AMD64 and EM64T. There are flavors of both Windows XP<\/a> and Windows Server 2003<\/a> that currently run on x64 which is poised to become the predominant 64-bit computer technology it would seem.<\/p>\n

So patches need to come in three flavors: x86, ia64, and x64. The latter two patches will contain both 32- and 64-bit binaries for the reasons given above and will be larger in size. While normally x86 code would run under WOW64 on 64-bit systems, the 32-bit release setups and patches will block on 64-bit systems (at the time this was published) to make sure that both 32- and 64-bit binaries are present.<\/p>\n

To decrease patch size and present a better end-user experience, we are looking to implement a 32-bit native wrapper for all three architectures. OS detection will be used in conjunection with the MSI Template summary property<\/a> of the MSI package embedded in the native executable to present a more user-friendly error message if a user accidentally downloads and tries installing a 64-bit patch on a 32-bit system. Currently, the Windows executable loader would simple display, “<file> is not a valid Win32 application.”  This works because the 32-bit MSI APIs can install a 64-bit MSI package or patch<\/a> using the 64-bit Windows Installer service, so no file system<\/a> or registry redirection<\/a> will occur.<\/p>\n

Updated:<\/strong> The 4th paragraph mistakenly stated that x64 refers to both AMD64 and IA64<\/strong>. This was supposed to have read EM64T, not IA64.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the .NET Framework 2.0 now supporting 64-bit platforms, I have begun work on upgrading our patch build system to handle 64-bit patches. It’s been quite an adventure down the yellow-brick road of 64 bitness that I think is worth sharing. Why does the .NET Framework need to support 64-bit platforms, though? While most IL modules embedded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":3843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,14,20],"class_list":["post-3373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-64-bit","tag-development","tag-installation"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

With the .NET Framework 2.0 now supporting 64-bit platforms, I have begun work on upgrading our patch build system to handle 64-bit patches. It’s been quite an adventure down the yellow-brick road of 64 bitness that I think is worth sharing. Why does the .NET Framework need to support 64-bit platforms, though? While most IL modules embedded […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/setup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}