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

registry wow64
Mr. Boy picture Mr. Boy · Sep 7, 2010 · Viewed 15.7k times · Source

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?

Answer

Gerald picture Gerald · Sep 7, 2010

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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