Can I still develop 32-bit applications using a 64-bit machine?

Question

Hi, I'm wondering if I can still develop 32-bit apps using a 64-bit machine (64-bit Windows Vista with Visual Studio 2008 SP1)? Because I am planning to buy a laptop with 64-bit Vista. Im asking just to make sure. Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes. 64-bit vista will run 32-bit executables, so if you have a 32-bit compiler, it will still work.

Answer 2

With Visual Studio you are able to target what platform. By default it will run on "Any CPU" (read 32 or 64 bit), but you can specify if you desire. Look under Project>Properties>Build and look for the "Platform Target" property.

Answer 3

Within visual studio you can tell it what to compile to under the Configuration Manager - (Build Menu - Configuration manager) - this allows you to target 32 or 64 bit.

Answer 4

64-bit Windows runs 32-bit Visual Studio just fine. Unless you specify you wish you use the x64 development tools, it will still compile 32-bit applications.

Straight from the page:

Visual Studio uses the 32-bit cross compiler even on a Windows 64-bit computer. You can, however, use devenv commands to create a command line environment to call 64-bit hosted tools.

Further Information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms246588(VS.80).aspx

Answer 5

64bit of consumer hardwares is usually "amd64" architecture which can run both 32bit apps and 64bit ones natively. Windows Vista 64bit edition supports both 32bit and 64bit system libraries, so basically you can run both type of applications as well. (Note that IA-64 architecture does not allow this.)

Compiling a program in 64bit is not much related to the platform that the compiler runs. But, of course, to run and test the result binary requires the corresponding architecture.

As many mentioned above, VS2008 let you choose the target architecture, so there's no problem.