Application manifest for 64 bit applications

user_488539 0
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I have created a 64-bit Windows application, and would like to include an Application Manifest.

I have compared several DLLs of other vendors, e.g. shell32.dll , and saw that they set the value "x86" as processorArchitecture; example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly
  xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1"
  manifestVersion="1.0">
<assemblyIdentity
    name="...."
    processorArchitecture="x86"
    version="...."
    type="win32"/>
<description>....</description>
<dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity
            type="win32"
            name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
            version="6.0.0.0"
            processorArchitecture="x86"
            publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
            language="*"
        />
    </dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>

My questions:

  1. Is it really OK that a 64 bit application gets a manifest with processorArchitecture="x86" ?

  2. Microsoft describes processorArchitecture as follows:

Specifies the processor. The valid values are x86 for 32-bit Windows and ia64 for 64-bit Windows. Optional.

This is very confusing to me. Why isn't amd64 / x86-64 listed? I have a 64-bit Windows, but I do not have an Intel Itanium architecture.

Edit July 2021: Microsoft has updated the description. The new description is: "Specifies the processor. Valid values include x86, amd64, arm and arm64. Optional."

  1. Is it OK that, according to the manifest, my 64-bit applicaton depends on "Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" with processorArchitecture="x86" ? If my application "uses" a DLL like comctl32.dll for displaying controls, I assume it must be the same architecture, as 64bit cannot bind 32bit without a thunk.

Edit: It turns out that I made a mistake: I had looked at the DLL using the tool "Resource Hacker", which is a 32 bit app, and so I saw the 32-bit DLL through SysWOW64 while assuming it is the 64bit DLL. The real 64bit DLL contains processorArchitecture="amd64", as expected.

manifest windows
1 Answers

The processorArchitecture attribute identifying your app is not checked by Windows 10. You can omit it.

The attribute must have the correct value under the dependentAssembly element. However, you can use processorArchitecture="*" for simplicity.

If you want to be explicit, amd64 is the correct value for the x86-64 architecture. Documenting only ia64 is obviously an omission in Microsoft docs. I have submitted a pull request to correct that.

shell32.dll specifies amd64 in my copy of Windows 10.

user_20325140
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