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Windows x64: how to launch x86 Windows Explorer plugins?

Nov 8

Written by:
11/8/2013 11:42 AM  RssIcon

Fine, you just wanted to use a x64 OS and bought it, because you need to make a lot of calculations for financial softwares, make videos, to play... or whatever else. You just forget that most of current applications are still in x86, with plugins in Explorer, providing right-click menu items, which, infortunately, won't appear in the x64 Windows Explorer, because the plugin is a dll which was x86 built and cannot be loaded by the x64 process...

By Jove, there's a way to launch the Windows Explorer with the missing plugins...

Microsoft provides in the C:\Windows\SysWOW64 folder the x86 process, as mentioned by the name :-), duplicating the ones of the system32 folder (which correspond to the x64 processes :-)... ).

In order to see the x86 plugins in the x86 Windows Explorer, the following command should be used:

C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\explorer.exe /separate,c:

You just need then to declare a shortcut on the desktop to use it. Right-click menu items like PDF Creator will the appear.

Tags: SysWOW64 , x86 , x64
Categories: OS

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