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How to disable Registry redirection in x64 Windows?


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#1 Guest_AnonVendetta_*

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Posted 29 January 2016 - 09:45 AM

I have several applications that are 32 bit executables and redirect to the Wow6432Node in the Registry (an example is a desktop/shell replacement called Litestep, and another called SharpEnviro). This normally wouldn't be an issue, but for example, trying to run the 'sfc /scannow' command in SharpEnviro in CMD gives an error. Navigating to 'C:\Windows\System32' in CMD and then running 'sfc /scannow' works fine. I think this happens because Registry redirection keeps causing CMD to redirect to the 32 bit version of CMD and SFC on my x64 system. Litestep has both a 32 and 64 bit version, but the x86 version cannot run 64 bit plugins, and the x64 version cannot run 32 bit plugins. The 32 bit version is more supported and has many more plugins, so I think it is what I should be using.

 

Are there any reasons I shouldn't do this, and is it even possible to completely disable this redirection? I plan to do this immediately on a clean install for best results, before installing any programs, drivers, etc.

 

I had recently found a webpage by MS on how to do this, but can't seem to locate it after searching on Google.



#2 Olof Lagerkvist

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Posted 29 January 2016 - 03:52 PM

I'm not entirely sure that Registry redirection is the root cause of your problems. To me it sounds more like the filesystem redirection that causes "system32" to redirect to "syswow64" within 32 bit applications. So, if you run C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe, C:\Windows\system32\sfc.exe etc from within 32 bit applications you will actually run the 32 bit versions located in C:\Windows\syswow64. You can run files in the "native" system32 directory using the path C:\Windows\sysnative\sfc.exe, for instance.



#3 Guest_AnonVendetta_*

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Posted 29 January 2016 - 10:10 PM

@ Olof: Thanks for the info. But can both Registry and filesystem redirection be completely disabled? If so then where can I find more info?

 

Thanks!



#4 Olof Lagerkvist

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Posted 29 January 2016 - 10:29 PM

As far as I know this can only be done per process by calling the Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection API function. There are many potential issues with this though. The most obvious one is that if redirections is disabled, 32 bit applications fail to find their 32 bit versions of system dlls and instead find the default 64 bit versions. Since a 64 bit dll cannot be loaded into a 32 bit process this can cause various kinds of errors and it's not always obvious what will fail and exactly when it will fail.



#5 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 30 January 2016 - 08:34 AM

Just in case:

http://www.samlogic....bit-windows.htm

http://scottiestech....in-x64-windows/

 

:duff:

Wonko






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