Ways to access a 32bit DLL from a 64bit exe

Question

I have a project that must be compiled and run in 64 bit mode. Unfortunately, I am required to call upon a DLL that is only available in 32 bit mode, so there\'s no way I ca

Answer 1

I know this answer might be a little bit late, but some time ago I faced the exact same problem (loading a 32bit dll into an AnyCPU assembly on a 64bit machine).

As a solution, I wrote the LegacyWrapper. It basically consists of a 32bit wrapper exe loading the desired dll, communicating with your application via Named Pipes.

A call would look like this:

// Define delegate matching api function
private delegate int GetSystemMetrics(int index);

// Create new WrapperClient
// Remember to ensure a call to the Dispose()-Method!
using (var client = new WrapperClient())
{
    // Make calls providing library name, function name, and parameters
    int x = (int)client.Invoke("User32.dll", "GetSystemMetrics", new object[] { 0 });
    int y = (int)client.Invoke("User32.dll", "GetSystemMetrics", new object[] { 1 });
}

For some details, you can refer to this blog post.

Edit: Since Version 2.1, LegacyWrapper also supports loading 64bit DLLs from a 32bit process.