Determing 32 Bit or 64 Bit in advance of installation

[spflanze]

Other than documentation that might come with the file, is there a way to know in advance of installation whether an installation file will install a 32 bit or a 64 bit MS Windows program?

[Bob Wya]

Other than documentation that might come with the file, is there a way to know in advance of installation whether an installation file will install a 32 bit or a 64 bit MS Windows program?

Yup... See the pev - the PE file analysis toolkit ...

I've got version 0.40 installed (for some reason later releases segfault on me - probably a mistake in my Gentoo build script - possibly a bug)...

Code: Select all

pev -c abbulkmailer_setup.exe

COFF header:
 Machine:			0x14c - Intel 386 and compatible (32-bits)
 Number of sections:		4
 Date/time stamp:		1441778346 (Wed, 09 Sep 2015 05:59:06 UTC)
 Symbol Table offset:		0
 Number of symbols:		0
 Size of optional header:	0xe0
 Characteristics:		0x103 (0000000100000011)
				base relocations stripped
				executable image
				32-bit machine

It can also give you the product build version, and all kinds of other goodies!
I'm sure for binary distributions the newer (more feature rich releases) will run OK... probably

Bob

[madewokherd]

No, installers will usually be a 32-bit executable, regardless of whether they install 32-bit or 64-bit software.

[Bob Wya]

No, installers will usually be a 32-bit executable, regardless of whether they install 32-bit or 64-bit software.

Yup. confirmed. I stand corrected!

Bob