How can I determine the bitness of the OS using Perl on Windows?

Question

Using Perl, how can I determine whether my program is running on 32 bit Windows or 64 bit Windows?

Is there any API available?

I can think of a couple of options..

1. Check the PE_HEADER of some windows file (eg: c:\windows\explorer.exe) - maybe I can use the details in How can I test a windows dll to determine if it is 32bit or 64bit?

2. Check for the existence of c:\program files(x86) - if it exists then it is a 64 bit OS. Else it is a 32 bit windows OS.

Is there any good way of doing this? Any API available in Perl?

Answer 1

Perhaps you can just check some environment variables:

See HOWTO: Detect Process Bitness.

Answer 2

The PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE variable is "x86" in 32bits