how to get program files x86 env variable?

windows environment-variables windows-7-x64
Ashok picture Ashok · Mar 7, 2012 · Viewed 244.7k times · Source

I would like to know how I can display the location of Program Files (x86) in command prompt. I'm using Windows 7 64bit.

I've tried:

echo %programfiles(x86)% and echo %programfiles%,
both of which displays only C:\Program Files

When I manually checked the registry,
HKLM/Software/microsoft/windows/currentversion,
the programfilesdir points to C:\Program Files and

HKLM/Software/WOW64/Microsoft/winodws/currentversion,
the programfilesdir points to C:\Program Files (x86).

But, why am I always being displayed with C:\Program Files??

Answer

SecurityMatt picture SecurityMatt · Mar 7, 2012

On a 64-bit machine running in 64-bit mode:

  • echo %programfiles% ==> C:\Program Files
  • echo %programfiles(x86)% ==> C:\Program Files (x86)

On a 64-bit machine running in 32-bit (WOW64) mode:

  • echo %programfiles% ==> C:\Program Files (x86)
  • echo %programfiles(x86)% ==> C:\Program Files (x86)

On a 32-bit machine running in 32-bit mode:

  • echo %programfiles% ==> C:\Program Files
  • echo %programfiles(x86)% ==> %programfiles(x86)%

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