Do I have 32 or 64 Bit Windows XP?

by ron on August 24, 2010 · 2 comments

in Windows

While installing a software when you are asked about 32/64 bit processor/operating system, you often get confused and you ask yourself, ‘do I have 32 bit processor/OS?’ or ‘do I have 64 bit processor/OS?’

A processor may be 32 bit or 64 bit. A 32 bit processor will have 32 bit operating system but a 64 bit processor may have 32 bit or 64 bit operating system.

If you run windows operating system, the following script will tell you whether you have a 32 or 64 bit operating system.

'Copyright 2010 - Ron
'http://www.ittybittytalks.com

On Error Resume Next
 
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 
X = WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE")
 
If X = "x86" Then
 
Message = vbCR & "You have a 32 bit version of Windows Operating System" & vbCR & vbCR
Message = Message & "You should download 32 bit versions of Service Packs, " & vbCR
Message = Message & "Hotfixes and other Windows updates"
 
MsgBox Message, vbOkOnly, "32-Bit Windows Found!"
 
Else
 
Message = vbCR & "Your Processor Architecture is not 32-Bit x86." & vbCR & vbCR
Message = Message & "This identifies a machine potentially running a 64-Bit" & vbCR
Message = Message & "Edition of Windows OS. You should open your system properties" & vbCR
Message = Message & "(Start menu>Programs>Accessories>System tools>System information)" & vbCR
Message = Message & "to identify which hotfixes to apply on this system." & vbCR & vbCR
Message = Message & "Intel Itanium/II CPU = patches marked IA64" & vbCR
Message = Message & "AMD Opteron or Athlon64/FX = Patches marked as AMD64" & vbCR
 
MsgBox Message, vbOkOnly, "Non x86 Windows Found!"
 
End If

To run the script, do follow

  1. Copy the code from here and paste in notepad.
  2. Save the script as something.vbs (e.g.: cpu.vbs)
  3. After saving, run the script by double clicking on it.
  4. If you see a warning like follow, ignore it and click on Open
  5. security warning

    If you see a security warning like this, ignore it

  6. Finally, you will see a message like follow

    Windows found

    Do you have a 32 or 64 bit processor/Operating System?

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

1 jesmin September 23, 2010 at 1:13 pm

useful script, very old technique though

Reply

2 hp October 28, 2011 at 4:02 am

Thanks a lot for this. Really what I was looking for.

Reply

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