Working on a 64-bit OS like Windows 2008 R2 and trying to access files in the %windir% folder can present a challenge if you are using 32-bit applications or utilities.
In my case I needed to backup the files in %windir%\System32\inetsrv\config folder and tried to use the 32-bit version of RAR. The result was an empty archive file; none of the files I could see with a simple dir command were included in the archive.
This is a by-product of the File System Redirector, briefly explained as:
The %windir%\System32 directory is reserved for 64-bit applications. Most DLL file names were not changed when 64-bit versions of the DLLs were created, so 32-bit versions of the DLLs are stored in a different directory. WOW64 hides this difference using a file system redirector.
To resolve this issue you need to be sure to use a 64-bit version of whatever software you’re trying to use. Another option listed is to use %windir%\Sysnative for %windir%\System32; a special alias used to indicate that the file system should not redirect the access.
More information can be found about this topic at Tip and Trick and Rick Strahl’s blog.
Sun, Feb 21, 2010
Technology