Launching Shell Links (LNKs) from WOW64

Question

Our 32-Bit application launches Windows LNK files (Shell Links) via ShellExecute. When it tries to \"launch\" a link to a 64-Bit binary (such as the \"Internet Explorer (64-

Answer 1

Anytime you here something is impossible on a computer, think again... The key is to utilize the c:\windows\sysnative\ path to shut off the redirection.

Here is very simple code that will do what you want:

#include 
#include 
#include 

int main(int iArgc, const char *pArgv[])
{
    ShellExecute(NULL, L"open", L"C:\\windows\\sysnative\\..\\..\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe", NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);
    BOOL bIAmWow64 = FALSE;
    IsWow64Process(GetCurrentProcess(), &bIAmWow64);
    printf("I am a wow64 process: %hs\n", bIAmWow64 ? "Yes": "No");
    return 0;
}

I hope that is helpful.