Forcing a .Net Windows service to run as 32-bit on a 64-bit machine

Question

I've been given a windows service which references a COM component that only runs on 32-bit. My machine is x64, so the service tries to start, fails to create the COM component, and dies.

I don't have the source, just the .exe file. Is there any way to force a service to start in 32-bit mode on a win64 machine?

Solution 1

Maybe the .NET tool corflags will help:

corflags /32bit+ myservice.exe

Solution 2

corflags.exe comes with the Windows SDK, not .NET.

corflags.exe needs to run only once against the target service exe. Then the service will run in 32-bit mode thereafter.

Note the argument needed is /32bitreq+ or /32bitpref+ .

corflags.exe /32bitreq+ myservice.exe

Comments

[BQ.]

+1 for the great answer, but the options come last: Usage: Corflags.exe Assembly [options]

[David Knight]

I had a problem where I got the message corflags : error CF001 : Could not open file for writing the solution was to add /force

[quetzalcoatl]

Same problems are for services built as .dll and debugged in VS through WcfSvcHost. In this case, you can switch the flag on the WcfSvcHost itself. see article