What would a 32-bit application running on Windows 7 return for the below?
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFiles)
C:\Program Files (x86) or C:\Program Files?
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Peter Mortensen
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Sameer Rastogi
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I think this assumes an English version of Windows. – Peter Mortensen Aug 04 '12 at 19:17
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Do you want the path from a 32bit process file system view or a 64bit process (e.g. Windows Explorer)'s file system view? – Sheng Jiang 蒋晟 Aug 04 '12 at 19:39
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[This](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194157/c-how-to-get-program-files-x86-on-vista-x64) might be useful also (another SO question). – cjk Aug 03 '10 at 15:05
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On 32 bit Windows 7 you should get "C:\Program Files", on 64 bit "C:\Program Files (x86)".
Mario
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Can we by any means get the path C:\Program Files (x86) instead of C:\Program Files? – Sameer Rastogi Aug 05 '10 at 08:35
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1There's no need for the added "x86" on 32 bit systems. If you'd like to get the x86 path even while running a 64 bit app on a 64 bit system, request Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFilesX86 instead. – Mario Aug 06 '10 at 17:37
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4That is not fully true - it depends on the bitness of the process ... `SpecialFolder.ProgramFiles` in an x86 build on an x64 os gives you *C:\Program Files (x86)* – Nov 26 '15 at 15:22
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It doesn't matter what it returns. Either value will map to the same folder, file system virtualization will always map it to (x86) for a 32-bit app.
Hans Passant
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Well I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit so I wanted to know for sure what was returned, so I put this into a console application to see what was returned
Console.WriteLine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFiles));
And it returned C:\Program Files
PsychoCoder
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