Can I run 64 bit dlls on a 32 bit machine?

Question

I have recently converted My visual studio solution to 64 bit from 32 bit. But, I have 1 machine which is running Windows Server 2003 (32 bit).Can I deploy and run these newly built 64 bit dlls on this 32 bit machine?

16 bit can be emulated in 32 bit but 64 bit? Memory access limit? How can you access to a 64-bit address with emulation? Does the first 32 bit of an address can be cropped? That must be hard, even the instructions will be incompatible. — huseyin tugrul buyukisik, Jul 02 '13 at 15:53
I think the answer is to make that somebody else's problem. Somebody closer to the guy that makes the hardware purchase decisions. Quite the opposite direction of this web site btw. — Hans Passant, Jul 02 '13 at 16:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 02 '13 at 15:56

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Yes you can using third party software like http://www.vmware.com/products/ BUT don't expect much from the performance!

answered Jul 02 '13 at 15:56

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An emulator can crop the instructions to 32 bit versions maybe. But special avx commands will be like 8-10 sse commands so will be very slow. – huseyin tugrul buyukisik Jul 02 '13 at 15:57
@huseyintugrulbuyukisik compiling would be a pain! – code Jul 02 '13 at 16:01

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 09 '13 at 03:50

Basically, the answer is no.

If the underlying hardware is 32-bit, then it definitely won't support 64-bit instructions.

If the hardware is 64-bit (and the OS is just 32-bit), it's possible in theory, but would require the kernel to not only setup a 64-bit code segment, but to also setup 64-bit paging (I think). Since I doubt the 32-bit Windows kernel supports either of these, then it's not possible.

Can I run 64 bit dlls on a 32 bit machine?

2 Answers2