What is SysWoW64 Folder in Windows?

WoW64 stands for Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit. SysWoW64 process running in your Windows is part of your Windows operating system. There are many Malware and Virus remover sites which claim it to be a Malware or Trojan Horse and tries to sell their Paid Anti-Virus, Trojan Remover tools.

In Windows folder, System32 directory is reserved for 64-bit applications. When 64-bit versions of the DLLs were created, most DLL file names were not changed. 32-bit version DLLs are now stored in a different directory. File system redirector is used by WOW64 to hide this difference.

When a 32-bit application makes an attempt to access %windir%System32, the access is redirected to %windir%SysWOW64. And %windir%lastgoodsystem32 is redirected to %windir%lastgoodSysWOW64. Access to %windir%regedit.exe is redirected to %windir%SysWOW64regedit.exe.

SysWOW64 folder contains several applications to support 32-bit applications e.g. cmd.exe, to register 32bit windows services, odbcad32.exe, to register ODBC connections for 32-bit applications.

16-bit applications made for MS-DOS and early versions of Windows are normally not compatible with 64-bit Windows Vista, 7 and 8. 32-bit version of Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8 can run run 16-bit applications easily.

Both 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer is found in Windows because of large number of 32-bit ActiveX components available on the Internet which can not run on 64-bit version. 32-bit IE is used by default and 64-bit IE can not be used as default web browser.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

How to Fix MSVCR110.dll missing error?

Why does Windows show less than 4GB of RAM?

EXE4J_JAVA_HOME, No JVM could be found on your system

Its a very nice post……..help me a lot for my site

Hello my friends,, today offer you the finest sites on the Internet to book hotels around the world at great prices and logical,

This site is supported from a hundred countries around the world,,

System32 is used to store 64bit programs. SysWoW64 is used to store 32bit programs.

So, can one assume if they have both Win7 (32) and Win7 (64) computers on their home network, or install an app that contains both 32-bit and 64-bit applications that this might somehow get installed on one of the 32-bit machines….?

I’ve recently set up two win7 64-bit machines on my otherwise 32-bit network, and other than connecting the 64-bit machines to the network, haven’t barely touched this 32-bit machine for the past 2 weeks, and suddenly today, Malwarebytes is saying it’s somehow detected SysWoW64.exe on it.

Very odd, and I have a very hard time believing its any kind of actual infection, since this machine has only interacted with the new 64-bit machines and hasn’t gone outside of my home network for the past two weeks or so.

SysWoW64 is a FOLDER. Malwarebytes is to be trusted – you have an infection.

SysWoW64.exe? 32-bit network? Are you _that_ clueless?