How to check if OS is 32 Bit OS or 64 Bit

Question

Is it possible to check if computer is 32 bit or 64 using vb.net code? I just want to display the result in a message.

Please advise.

Answer 1

Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem should do nicely.

Determines whether the current operating system is a 64-bit operating system.

The assumption being that a false signifies a 32bit environment.

If you want to find out if the process is 64bit (as you can run a 32bit process on a 64bit OS), use Environment.Is64BitProcess:

Determines whether the current process is a 64-bit process.

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Both of these have been introduced in .NET 4.0.

Answer 2

IntPtr.Size won't return the correct value if running in 32-bit .NET Framework 2.0 on 64-bit Windows (it would return 32-bit).

You have to first check if running in a 64-bit process (I think in .NET you can do so by checking IntPtr.Size), and if you are running in a 32-bit process, you still have to call the Win API function IsWow64Process. If this returns true, you are running in a 32-bit process on 64-bit Windows.

Microsoft's Raymond Chen: How to detect programmatically whether you are running on 64-bit Windows

Solution:

Private is64BitProcess As Boolean = (IntPtr.Size = 8)
Private is64BitOperatingSystem As Boolean = is64BitProcess OrElse InternalCheckIsWow64()

<DllImport("Kernel32.dll", SetLastError:=True, CallingConvention:=CallingConvention.Winapi)> _
    Public Shared Function IsWow64Process( _
    ByVal hProcess As Microsoft.Win32.SafeHandles.SafeHandleZeroOrMinusOneIsInvalid, _
    ByRef wow64Process As Boolean) As <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)> Boolean

    End Function

Public Shared Function InternalCheckIsWow64() As Boolean
    If (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major = 5 AndAlso Environment.OSVersion.Version.Minor >= 1) OrElse Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major >= 6 Then
        Using p As Process = Process.GetCurrentProcess()
            Dim retVal As Boolean
            If Not IsWow64Process(p.Handle, retVal) Then
                Return False
            End If
            Return retVal
        End Using
    Else
        Return False
    End If
End Function

Answer 3

I simply use this piece of code and it works fine:

If System.Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem = True Then
    MessageBox.Show("OS System : 64 Bit Operating System")
Else
    MessageBox.Show("OS System : 32 Bit Operating System")
End If