How do I resolve “%1 is not a valid Win32 application”?

Question

Environment:
Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise 64bit, SP2
.NET framework is supposedly installed (2.0 SP2, 3.0 SP2, 3.5 SP1)

I say \"suppo

Answer 1

I had this problem. I deployed an .EXE to a Windows 2003 that doesn't support .NET 4.5. I rebuilt the program with .NET 4 and it worked.

Answer 2

Have you tried running:

aspnet_regiis -i

from the command line?

Answer 3

Also check your application pool. In a 64-bit environment, you may need to set "Enable 32-bit applications" in Advanced Settings.

Answer 4

I had a similar error with IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 64 Bits.

The fusion log is not of any help here, and it turned out that in my case there was a third party assembly that was referencing a 32 Bits only assembly or native dll. (Xceed to be precise)

To find which assembly is being loaded by the 64 bits runtime :

• Attach the VS2008 debugger on w3wp.exe process that matches your application pool
• Intercept all exceptions (Menu Debug / Exceptions / check all "Common Language Runtime Exceptions").
• Make sure your application is reloaded completely (by modifying the web.config, for instance).
• When the System.BadImageFormatException exception is raised, look for a assembly name in the stack trace viewer window.

Remember that all assemblies placed in the bin directory are loaded, regardless of their actual implication in the application.

Answer 5

I had "%1 is not a valid Win32 application." error message because my PATH environment variable was messed up. Well, more specifically, the PATH itself had nothing wrong with it. Instead, I had accidentally created a file named "C:\Program" that was used instead of "C:\Program Files\" for path lookup. The accidental creation of "C:\Program" was a result of calling Notepad++ on the command line for C:\Program Files\test.txt (without quotation marks), so Notepad++ thought I was trying to edit a file called "C:\Program" and created the file for me.

Answer 6

I had "%1 is not a valid Win32 application." error message because my PATH environment variable was messed up as well. It included this garbage from a python install:

%PYTHON_HOME%;
%PYTHON_HOME%\Scripts;